Aid for Benin in slave ship search

COTONOU, Benin -- International help has been offered to Benin as it searches for a ship thought to be carrying child slaves.

The ship, whose captain faces an international arrest warrant for child trafficking, has been roaming off West Africa for more than two weeks with up to 250 children aboard.

Earlier reports that the ship had been seen off the island capital of Equatorial Guinea were quashed by authorities who said they could not verify Benin's report of a sighting of the MV Eterino.

"The United States for one has said it will help," said Social Protection Minister Ramatou Baba Moussa after an appeal for help to find the ship.

MESSAGE BOARD Child slavery     AUDIO Alfred Ironside, Unicef: Poverty is at the origin of the slavery trade 483 Kb/45 secs  AIFF or WAV Nicholas Pron, Unicef: We are very worried 416K/38 secs.  AIFF or WAV Esther Guluma, Unicef: Child slavery is common 800K/74 secs.  AIFF or WAV Ivan Watson, NPR Correspondent: A ring of child traffickers planned this trip 427K/39 secs.  AIFF or WAV The vessel has disappeared since last reported sighting 532 Kb/49 secs  AIFF or WAV     ALSO Child slavery: Africa's growing problem U.S. agrees to help find Benin slave ship

Benin authorities said police in neighbouring countries had also offered to help.

Baba Moussa said earlier she had reports the ship had been spotted off Equatorial Guinea's capital of Malabo, little more than 60 miles from the Cameroonian port of Douala, where it was last seen on Thursday.

But port authorities in Malabo said they had neither seen nor heard from the boat, which sailed from Cotonou on March 30 bound for Libreville in oil-rich Gabon. It was turned back there and later from Cameroon.

UNICEF, the United Nations' Children's Fund, had set up a receiving centre in Cotonou, in collaboration with the Benin government and other relief groups, to receive the children.

The organisation had also obtained agreement from the Equatorial Guinea Government for the boat to dock at its port "should it come ashore in that country," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

International arrest warrants have been issued for a businessman from Benin, Stanislas Abadtan, and at least two other people alleged to be organising the child-trafficking operation.

Aid workers said they feared that the Eterino might have sneaked into a port or landing in southern Nigeria -- much of which is a labyrinth of creeks and lagoons criss-crossing dense mangrove swamps.

"It must be in a port somewhere. It cannot be at sea that long. This is four days and I don't think it had sufficient fuel," said Esther Guluma of UNICEF in Cotonou.

"What I'm really hoping for is that we will have assistance from the international community with the capacity for search and rescue. You need a more sophisticated capacity in the air, including satellites at this point in time."

Some aid workers said that in the past, ship's captains had been known to throw children overboard when they died or grew sick. That has raised fears that the captain may have already tried to get rid of the children.

"I don't think the captain will do that. I just can't believe that -- not a large number of children," said Guluma.

Many child slaves from countries such as Benin, Togo and Mali end up working on plantations producing cocoa and other cash crops in Gabon and Ivory Coast.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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UNICEF

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