Moussa said the Etireno left the commercial capital, Cotonou, clandestinely more than a week ago. It was now returning with an unknown number of passengers but no unaccompanied children who had been refused entry in Gabon because they did not have the necessary travel documents, she said. A second ship arrived in Gabon at about the same time with about 250 passengers on board many of them young victims of child traffickers she said. Moussa insisted that ship had nothing to do with Benin. On Thursday, one of the ships was refused port in Douala, Cameroon, according to U.N. and Benin officials, but it was not immediately clear which one.
Girls often end up as domestic workers or prostitutes.
He said there were concerns that the crew might throw the children overboard. It wasn't clear how Benin's late Monday announcement that the unidentified vessel was the slave ship would affect the search. During the days long wait for the MV Etireno, the Nigerian police and navy had deployed along the coast to search for the vessel, officials said. A sighting was reported Saturday near the Nigerian port of Calabar, but the ship disappeared before it could be intercepted, said Tunde Fagbohungbe of the country's Women Trafficking and Child Labor Eradication Foundation. Earlier Monday, Moussa said Benin had contacted the United Nations and planned to call ambassadors of the United States and France to ask them to launch a search.