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Boat Migrants: 'We Thought We Would Die'

Two Eritrean asylum seekers have told how they relived their own nightmare of journeying across the Mediterranean when they heard how hundreds of people died in a single boat tragedy.

Habtom Hadish, 31, and Essay Fitiwi, 36, both took smuggler boats across the Mediterranean last year and had to be rescued by the Italian coastguard when their vessels broke down.

Speaking about the disaster off Libya at the weekend , Mr Hadish told Sky News: "I very sad that so many men and women died."

Mr Fitwi added: "I'm hurt, I'm sad and I'm crying. The situation is so dangerous."

Although they travelled separately, they both told how their boats broke down at sea - leaving them fearing they were going to drown.

Mr Hadish said: "The journey from Libya to Italy was very dangerous. It was in a small boat, about 350 people, in the middle of the sea. Unfortunately the pumping of water stopped and I felt like we were going to die, all of us."

He said two people on board suffocated below deck before the coast guard arrived.

Mr Fitwi said of the desperate conditions: "Inside there is heightened pressure and intensification. There is no air.

"Travelling without food, without water for 26 hours and the captain didn't know the direction for the GPS."

He said the boat ran out of fuel and it ended up drifting.

He added they were so desperate that they drank their own urine and said: "I thought we were going to die". The coastguard then arrived after 10 hours.

Both men were fleeing instability in Eritrea. Mr Fitwi travelled to Libya via Sudan in a truck, and Mr Hadish went via Ethiopia.

They both paid people smugglers $2,000 each but say they knew the risks they were taking.

Having arrived in Italy they then made it to France where they paid more people smugglers to get them to Britain in a lorry.

After claiming asylum, the Home Office sent them to Glasgow while their applications are being processed.

Mr Hadish said: "I had no choice. I had to take the risk. Eritrea is very corrupt. There is no freedom of speech or movement. Life is very dangerous. I chose to flee."

His colleague said his cousin paid the money to smugglers, adding: "Eritrea is a political dictatorship. There is only one party. No right to speak. No freedom of movement.

He said if he returned he would be in prison or tortured.

Speaking about living in Glasgow, Mr Fitwi, who gets £5 a day in benefits, said: "It's nice. You can learn and speak whatever you like. It is free. I'm going to college, learning English and working with a charity."

The men both think that more should be done to stop the smugglers.

But they believe the focus should be on improving the countries from where people flee.

Mr Fitwi said: "The EU and US should pressure Eritrea in to becoming a constitutional country."