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While the sun set out over Lake Turkana, a mother sobbed and threw flowers in the greenish-blue water to remember her teenager’s daughter, who drowned, trying to get to Kenya on a new route used by people smugglers.
Senait Mebrehtu, Pentecostal Christian Eritrean, who sought asylum in Kenya three years ago, made the worship in Northwestern Kenya to see herself where the 14-year-old Hiab lost her life last year.
The girl traveled with her sister, who survived after the transition of the late night over the huge lake where the winds could be powerful.
“If the smugglers told me that there was such a big and dangerous lake in Kenya, I would not allow my daughters to get there,” G -ja Senait told the BBC as she was sitting on the western coastline.
D -ja Senait had arrived by plane in the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, on a tourist visa with her two younger children running away from religious persecution. But she did not have to allow her to travel with her two other daughters at the time, as they were older and closer to the age of the summons.
Eritrea is a highly militarized one -party country – and often the national service can last for years and may include forced labor.
Teens asked to join her in Kenya, so she consulted relatives who told her they would pay smugglers to get the girls out of Eritrea.
The fate of the two girls was placed in the hands of traffickers, who took them on a weekly trip along the road and a foot from Eritrea to a neighboring northern Ethiopia-then south to Kenya to the northeastern shores of Lake Turkana, the world’s largest permanent lake.
Kenya’s smuggler has confirmed to the BBC that Lake Turkana is increasingly used as an illegal transition to migrants.
“We call it the digital route because it is very new,” she said.
The traffic, which earns about $ 1,500 (1130 British pounds) for each migrant in which he transferred or through Kenya (four times larger than the average monthly salary of a Kenyan worker) tells us about his work in a secret place and provided for anonymity.
For the past 15 years, it has been part of a huge smuggling network operating in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa – mainly moving those who run from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
As Kenya has strengthened patrols on her roads, smugglers turn to Lake Turkana to bring migrants into the country.
“Agents” on the new route, she said, received the migrants in the Kenyan fishing village of Lomeki, where road transport is organized to take them to Nairobi – a trip of about 15 hours.
A warning about the dangers of traveling on unstable wooden boats.
“I will not say that I love the money I make – because as a mother I cannot be happy when I see bad things that happen to the children of other women,” she told the BBC.
“I would like to advise the migrants whether they will listen to me. I would like to ask them to stay in their countries,” she said, further warning about the ruthless attitudes of many traffickers.
Osman, an Eritrean migrant who did not want to give his real name for security reasons, made the intersection with Hayab and her sister.
He recalled how Hiab’s boat transferred to his eyes shortly after leaving the fishing village of Iler, as he headed southwest to Lomequets.
“Hayab was in the boat in front of us – his motor was not working and was driven by a strong wind,” he said.
“They were about 300 m (984 feet) in the water when their boat turned over, leading to the deaths of seven people.”
Hayab’s sister survived by clinging to the sinking boat, while another vessel – also ruled by smugglers – did not come to the rescue.
Senait has accused the smugglers of death, saying they had overloaded the boat with more than 20 migrants.
“The cause of the death was ordinary negligence. They put too many people in a small boat that couldn’t even carry five people,” she said.
During the BBC visit to Lomeuki, two fishermen said they saw the bodies of migrants – which are thought to be Eritreans – floating in the lake, which is about 300 km (186 miles) and 50 km wide, in July 2024.
“There were about four bodies on the shore. Then a few days later, other bodies appeared,” Brighton Locaala said.
Another fisherman Joseph Lomuria said he saw the bodies of two men and two women – one of whom seemed to be a teenager.
In June 2024, the UN Refugee Agency, UNCBA, recorded 345,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in East Africa, from 580,000 worldwide.
Like the family of Senait, many run to avoid the military summoning in a country that has been involved in numerous wars in the region and where free political and religious activity is not tolerated as the government is trying to maintain close government.
Uganda -based Eritrea Mula Berhan’s lawyer told the BBC that Kenya and Uganda are increasingly becoming the preferred destination of these migrants due to conflict in Ethiopia and Sudan, which the two neighbor Eritrea.
Her wife said that in her experience, some of the migrants settled in Kenya, but others used as the country as a transit point to reach Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa, believing that it was easier to obtain a refugee status there.
The smuggling network works in all these countries, handing over migrants to various “agents” until they reach their final destination, which in some cases can be Europe or North America.
Her job is to hand over those migrants who are in transit in Nairobi to agents who hold them in House Holding until the next match of their trip is arranged and paid.
At this stage, each migrant probably paid about $ 5,000 for the trip so far.
BBC saw a room in a block of apartments that is used as a holding. Five Eritrean men were closed inside the room that had a mattress.
In the holding houses, migrants are expected to pay rent and also pay for their food – and the smuggler said he knew about three men and a young woman who died of hunger as they had run out of money.
She said the agents simply threw away the bodies and called their death bad luck.
“Smugglers continue to lie to families, saying that their people are alive and continue to send money,” she admitted.
According to her, women migrants were often sexually abused or forced to marry men’s smugglers.
She said she had no intention of giving up lucrative trade, but believes that others should be aware of what might be in front of them.
For Mrs. Senait, she is a little comfort that still complains of the death of her 14-year-old, while relieved that her older daughter survived and was unharmed by the smugglers.
“We went through what every Eritrean family goes through,” she said.
“May God heal our land and deliver us from all this.”