Mourning with anger of the Eritrean mother in Kenyan smugglers over Lake Turkan drowned

When the sun came over Turkan’s lake, the mother sobbed and threw the flowers into the green-blue water to remember her teenage daughter, who drowned, trying to get to Kenya along the new route used by smugglers.

Senate Mebrecht, Pentecost Christian Eritrey, who turned to the asylum in Kenya three years ago, made a pilgrimage to Northwestern Kenya to see himself where 14-year-old Hyab lost his life last year.

The girl was traveling with her sister, who survived the crossing of the late night above the huge lake, where the wind could be powerful.

“If the smugglers told me that Kenya had such a big and dangerous lake, I would not allow my daughters to come so far,” said Ms Senut when she was sitting on the western coastline.

Ms Senut arrived on the plane in the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, in a tourist visa with her two younger children, escaping with religious persecution. But she was not allowed to travel with her two other daughters at a time when they were older and closer to the era of conscription.

Eritrea is a very militarized, one -party country – and often the national service can continue for years and may include forced labor.

The teenagers asked to join her in Kenya, so she consulted with relatives who told her they would pay smugglers to get girls from Eritrea.

The fate of the two girls was put into the hands of the traders who sent them a few weeks traveling on the road and a leg from Eritrea to Northern Ethiopia-Potes south to Kenya to the northeast shore of Lake Turkan, the world’s largest deserted lake.

A smuggler woman in Kenya confirmed the BBC that Lake Turkan is increasingly used as illegal migrants’ crossing.

“We call it a digital route because it is very new,” she said.

Trade, which earns about $ 1500 ($ 1130 pounds) for each migrant, which she trades in Kenya (four times the average monthly salary of the Kenyan worker), told us about her work in a secret place and subject to anonymity.

For the last 15 years, it has been a huge smuggling that has been operating across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa – mostly moving those who escaped Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.

When Kenya rose on the roads, smugglers are now turning to Lake Turkan to get to migrants to the country.

The “agents” on the new route, she said, received migrants in the Kenyan fishing village of Lamekwi, where road transport was organized to deliver them to Nairobi – a journey for about 15 hours.

Warning the danger of traveling on shaky wooden boats, she addressed her parents not to allow her children to make a transition alone.

“I will not say that I love the money I make – because as a mother, I can’t be happy when I see the bad things that happen to other children,” she said BBC.

“I would like to advise migrants when they listened to me. I would like to ask them to stay in their countries,” she said, warning the clicking relations of many people.

Ottman, the eritrean migrant who did not want to call his real name for security reasons, made the intersection at the same time as Hiab and her sister.

He reminded that Hiaba’s boat crossed the eyes shortly after leaving the fishing village Ileret when she was heading to the southwest to Lamekwi.

“Hyab was in the boat in front of us – his engine did not work, and his movements are a strong wind,” he said.

“They were about 300 m (984 feet) into the water when their boat overturned, leading to the death of seven people.”

Hyab’s sister survived, clinging to a tan of a boat while another vessel – also ruled by smugglers – came to the rescue.

Ms Senut accused the smugglers of death, saying that they had overloaded the boat more than 20 migrants.

“The cause of death was a simple negligence. They put too many people into a small boat that could not even move five people,” she said.

During the BBC visit to Lamepka, two fishermen said they saw the bodies of migrants – considered by the Eritrets – in July 2024, floating in the lake, which is about 300 km (186 miles).

“There were about four bodies on the shore. Then a few days later there were other bodies,” Brighton Local said.

Another fisherman, Joseph Lamuria, said he saw the bodies of two men and two women – one of whom was a teenager.

In June 2024, the UNU refugee agency, UNHCR, recorded 345,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in East Africa with 580,000 worldwide.

Like Ms. Senita’s family, many escape to avoid a military call to the country that has been involved in numerous wars in the region, and where free political and religious activity is not allowed when the government is trying to retain dense power.

The Eritrean lawyer based on Uganda, Mula Berhan told the BBC that Kenya and Uganda are increasingly becoming the preferred direction of these migrants due to conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan, which both neighbors of the Eritrea.

The contractor himself said in her experience some migrants settled in Kenya, but others used as a country as a transit point to reach Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa, believing that it is easier to get refugee status.

The smuggling network operates in all these countries, transmitting migrants to various “agents” until they reach the final destination, which in some cases – can also be Europe or North America.

Its task is to convey those migrants who are in the transit to Nairobi, the agents who keep them in the “holding of the houses” until the next stage of their trip is organized and paid.

At this stage, each migrant probably paid about $ 5,000 for traveling before this point.

The BBC saw a room in a block of apartments used as a holding. Five Eritrean men were closed in a room with one mattress.

During the houses, migrants are expected to pay rent, and also pay for food – and the smuggler said she knew about three men and a young woman who died of starvation when they were over.

She said the agents simply disposed of the bodies and called the death of misfortunes.

“The smugglers continue to lie to the families, saying that their people are alive and they continue to send money,” she admitted.

Women’s migrants, she said, were often subjected to sexual abuse or forced to marry the smugglers.

She said she did not intend to give up the profitable trade, but found that others should know what could be ahead.

This is little consolation for Ms Senut, who still mourns at the death of her 14-year-old, expressing relief that her eldest daughter survived and was not damaged by smugglers.

“We have experienced what every Eritrey family is experiencing,” she said.

“May God cure our land and deliver us from all this.”