In the days after the food and water had run out, as the catamaran drifted helplessly in the Atlantic with a snapped mask and broken motor, there was nothing left to do but pray, said Muctarr Mansaray, 27.

“I pray every day. I pray a lot at that particular moment. I don’t sleep at night,” he said.

Mansaray and 24 other African migrants had set out from the African nation of Cape Verde in April, on what they were told by the two Brazilian crewmen would be a relatively quick and easy voyage to a new country where they hoped to find…