MaFiA MaGhReBIn
05-08-2007, 17:31
A Morrocan man lost at sea ate his friend's flesh to stay alive. His horror story began when six men went on a trip to work abroad.
Youssef Kaindil, 30, and five friends set off on the two-day trip to Spain, to try get work at a fish-processing factory.
But it all went horribly wrong when the engine of their 4m wooden boat gave in 24 hours after they had set sail.
A day later, their meagre food supply began to run out.
'I bit a piece out of his thigh'
And by the end of the third day, the last of their stash of sardines had been eaten.
Three weeks later five of the men were dead.
And Kaindil, the sole survivor, was picked up off the coast of Morocco by a passing ship and was brought to Port Elizabeth.
He was found hungry, weak and alone in the rickety vessel.
Kaindil said he had little choice but to feed on his dead friend's thighs.
'The thirst and hunger was unbearable'
"I bit a piece out of his thigh but I had to close my eyes," he said with the help of a French interpreter.
"It was never meant to end like this," he said.
He remembers watching his friends grow desperate from hunger and thirst.
They became delirious and nearly lost their minds. Two of them became insane and began to take their frustrations out on the others.
"I had to hide away in a corner, otherwise they would have harmed me," said Kaindil.
But it was the cunning skipper who came to his rescue. The captain waited for the two men to fall asleep, then threw them overboard.
"It's the only way we would've survived their mad attacks," Kaindil explained.
"Two others just lost their minds and dived overboard and drowned."
Mother nature did little to help, with no rainfall at all during their rocky ride on the rough seas.
They were forced to drink sea water as a result.
"The thirst and hunger was unbearable," he continued.
Kaindil was unable to catch fish with his bare hands.
The men even tried unsuccessfully to catch birds flying overhead.
Two large freighters passed them but failed to spot their floating dingy.
"I was just getting thinner and thinner and thinner."
Kaindil, a well-built man when he left his home in Morocco a month ago to travel to Spain, quickly became a mere shadow of his former self.
He dropped from around 80kg to 53kg in the three weeks.
It was that hunger and desperation that drove him to eat from the corpse of the last of the men to die.
Although Youssef is not proud of it, he talks about the fear of watching his "friends die one by one" and not knowing if he was going to be next.
"I spent that last week at sea all alone," he said.
"I was very hungry and thirsty.
"By then I was prepared to die."
That was when he began to make peace with Allah.
"A Godly tranquillity came over me and I spent my time talking to Allah," he added.
"He kept me sane."
Not long after that, a Safmarine freighter, the Nokwanda, sailed into sight. It was to be Kaindil's lucky day because the vessel stopped.
"I can't describe how I felt when the ship slowed down and steered towards me," he said.
"I was saved."
A crew member of the Nokwanda said the Moroccan man as extremely thin when he climbed aboard.
He was unsteady on his feet and very confused.
All Kaindil wanted was water to quench his weeks of thirst.
The Nokwanda handed Kaindil over to the South African authorities last week and he has since returned to Morocco.
BRON
Youssef Kaindil, 30, and five friends set off on the two-day trip to Spain, to try get work at a fish-processing factory.
But it all went horribly wrong when the engine of their 4m wooden boat gave in 24 hours after they had set sail.
A day later, their meagre food supply began to run out.
'I bit a piece out of his thigh'
And by the end of the third day, the last of their stash of sardines had been eaten.
Three weeks later five of the men were dead.
And Kaindil, the sole survivor, was picked up off the coast of Morocco by a passing ship and was brought to Port Elizabeth.
He was found hungry, weak and alone in the rickety vessel.
Kaindil said he had little choice but to feed on his dead friend's thighs.
'The thirst and hunger was unbearable'
"I bit a piece out of his thigh but I had to close my eyes," he said with the help of a French interpreter.
"It was never meant to end like this," he said.
He remembers watching his friends grow desperate from hunger and thirst.
They became delirious and nearly lost their minds. Two of them became insane and began to take their frustrations out on the others.
"I had to hide away in a corner, otherwise they would have harmed me," said Kaindil.
But it was the cunning skipper who came to his rescue. The captain waited for the two men to fall asleep, then threw them overboard.
"It's the only way we would've survived their mad attacks," Kaindil explained.
"Two others just lost their minds and dived overboard and drowned."
Mother nature did little to help, with no rainfall at all during their rocky ride on the rough seas.
They were forced to drink sea water as a result.
"The thirst and hunger was unbearable," he continued.
Kaindil was unable to catch fish with his bare hands.
The men even tried unsuccessfully to catch birds flying overhead.
Two large freighters passed them but failed to spot their floating dingy.
"I was just getting thinner and thinner and thinner."
Kaindil, a well-built man when he left his home in Morocco a month ago to travel to Spain, quickly became a mere shadow of his former self.
He dropped from around 80kg to 53kg in the three weeks.
It was that hunger and desperation that drove him to eat from the corpse of the last of the men to die.
Although Youssef is not proud of it, he talks about the fear of watching his "friends die one by one" and not knowing if he was going to be next.
"I spent that last week at sea all alone," he said.
"I was very hungry and thirsty.
"By then I was prepared to die."
That was when he began to make peace with Allah.
"A Godly tranquillity came over me and I spent my time talking to Allah," he added.
"He kept me sane."
Not long after that, a Safmarine freighter, the Nokwanda, sailed into sight. It was to be Kaindil's lucky day because the vessel stopped.
"I can't describe how I felt when the ship slowed down and steered towards me," he said.
"I was saved."
A crew member of the Nokwanda said the Moroccan man as extremely thin when he climbed aboard.
He was unsteady on his feet and very confused.
All Kaindil wanted was water to quench his weeks of thirst.
The Nokwanda handed Kaindil over to the South African authorities last week and he has since returned to Morocco.
BRON