They survived another four days, according to their account, by drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the southeastern port of Vitoria. "It was a terrible experience for me," said 38-year-old Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, one of the four Nigerians, in an interview at a Sao Paulo church shelter. Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little option but to abandon their native Nigeria. He had never met his new shipmates and feared they could toss him into the sea at any moment. Father Paolo Parise, a priest at the Sao Paulo shelter, said he had come across other cases of stowaways, but never one so dangerous.

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Persons: Matthew Yeye, Friday, Ken, Father Paolo Parise, Steven Grattan, Gabriel Stargardter, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: SAO PAULO, Liberian, Sao, Thomson Locations: Vitoria, Sao Paulo, Europe, Brazil, Nigeria, Africa's, Lagos