Mysterious Return of Benin 'Slave Ship'

April 17 -- The MV Etireno was supposed to a rusting, decrepit hulk of a ship, as ravaged on the outside as its suspected human cargo was inside.

Up and down the west coast of Africa, authorities had been busy hunting it, suspecting that it was carrying hundreds of children from Benin into a life of slavery in countries far away from home.

But a boat called the Etireno arrived in Benin today, surprising authorities not only with its appearance, but its cargo.

It was no longer a 200-foot rust-bucket, but a ferry with a fresh coat of paint — under which its apparent former name, "Nordby," could still be seen, according to The Associated Press.

And instead of carrying hundreds of child slaves, the Etireno was carrying people of all ages, who seemed to be merely poor migrants looking for better lives.

The authorities found 43 children, at most, who might have been slaves. But now they face a bigger problem, after alarming the world over what they thought were human traffickers at work.

They have to explain what happened.

Multiple Possible Fates

Alfred Ironside of the United Nations Children's Fund told ABCNEWS.com there are all sorts of possibilities that might for what happened to the Eterino, but they fall into three main scenarios.

"One possibility is that there was some kind of mistake at the outset, that the vessel which left Benin never carried any children," Ironside said.

Another is that there was a second boat that did in fact carry children, but it was confused with this vessel, he said.

The third was that this vessel was indeed carrying children, but then surreptitiously dropped them off somewhere.

"There are any other number of more complex scenarios," Ironside said. The children could have been transferred from one boat to another at sea; they could have been carried on to another destination, and then the Eterino returned with a different crew; the economic migrants on board could have been paid off.

"It's as wild as your imagination can be," he said. "It could be simple error, it could subterfuge."