Mourning Eritrean mother's anger at Kenyan migrant smugglers over Lake Turkana drowning

BBC News

07-05-2025

Mourning mother's anger at Kenyan migrant smugglers
As the sun set over Lake Turkana, a mother sobbed and threw flowers into the greenish-blue water to remember her teenage daughter who had drowned trying to reach Kenya via a new route being used by people smugglers.
Senait Mebrehtu, a Pentecostal Christian Eritrean who had sought asylum in Kenya three years ago, made the pilgrimage to north-western Kenya to see for herself where 14-year-old Hiyab had lost her life last year.
The girl had been travelling with her sister, who survived the late-night crossing over the vast lake, where winds can be powerful.
"If the smugglers told me there was such a big and dangerous lake in Kenya, I wouldn't have let my daughters come this far," Ms Senait told the BBC as she sat on the western shoreline.
Ms Senait had arrived by plane in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, on a tourist visa with her two younger children, fleeing religious persecution. But she was not to allowed to travel with her two other daughters at the time as they were older and nearer the age of conscription.
Eritrea is a highly militarised, one-party country - and often national service can go on for years and can include forced labour.
The teenagers begged 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 put into the hands of traffickers who took them on a weeks-long trip by road and foot from Eritrea into neighbouring northern Ethiopia - then to the south into Kenya to the north-eastern shores of Lake Turkana, the world's largest permanent desert lake.
A female smuggler in Kenya confirmed to the BBC that Lake Turkana was increasingly being used as an illegal crossing for the migrants.
"We call it the digital route because it is very new," she said.
The trafficker, who earns around $1,500 (£1,130) for each migrant she traffics into or through Kenya (four times the average monthly salary of a Kenyan worker), spoke to us about her work at a secret location and on condition of anonymity.
For the last 15 years she has been part of a huge smuggling network that operates across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa - mainly moving those fleeing from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
With Kenya having stepped up patrols on its roads, smugglers are now turning to Lake Turkana to get migrants into the country.
"Agents" on the new route, she said, received the migrants in the Kenyan fishing village of Lomekwi where road transport was organised to take them to Nairobi - a journey of about 15 hours.
Warning of the dangers of travelling on the rickety wooden boats, she appealed to parents not to allow their children to make the crossing alone.
"I won't say I love the money I make - because as a mother I can't be happy when I see bad things happening to other women's children," she told the BBC.
"I'd like to advise migrants if they'll listen to me. I'd like to beg them to stay in their countries," she said, further cautioning of the callous attitudes of many traffickers.