Back home with dream shattered

The Bangladeshi trafficking victims, who returned home in the last two days, narrated inhuman physical and mental torture they endured on their way to Malaysia on boats.

They were regularly beaten up and kept unfed for days. Whenever they tried to protest, the traffickers intensified the torture.

Rescued from the Andaman Sea by the Malaysian authorities in May, 12 Bangladeshi fortune seekers returned home from Kuala Lumpur yesterday, while 95 others of the same group returned on Thursday.

Officials of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) received the returnees at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the last two days and assisted them with some grants from the IOM.

Narrating the agonising ordeal to this correspondent, Mohammad Shahid said, “We were not given food for many days. Whenever we cried for food or water, they [traffickers] made us drink the seawater.”

The 19-year-old boy had lost all hope of returning home alive. “I cannot recall how many days I passed without any food or water and how many times I lost consciousness. I was so emaciated that I could barely talk or move in the boat.”

A resident of Monirampur upazlia in Jessore, Shahid said he saw his fellow travellers dying from lack of water, starvation and torture by the human traffickers on the sea.

“I saw deaths before my very own eyes,” he said. “I was so weak, shocked and scared that I couldn't even cry loudly.”

He could not contact his parents before being rescued by the Malaysian authorities on May 11.

Shahid along with seven others from Jessore took the perilous sea journey from Cox's Bazar in March after a local broker lured them with the prospect of decent jobs in Malaysia. The broker asked for Tk 2.5 lakh from each for sending them to the Southeast Asian country.

Desperate to change his life and that of his poor family, Mehedi Hasan, another fortune seeker, took the treacherous journey in March. But he never imagined that his journey to a better future would turn out to be a nightmare.

Hailing from Jhenidah, Mehedi, a school dropout, was also persuaded by a local broker.

“When the traffickers stopped giving food and started torturing us, I thought I would die soon,” he said in a choked voice.

He repeatedly pleaded with the traffickers to send him back home, but to no avail.

“They [traffickers] told me that I wouldn't be able to return home until I reach Malaysia. They never allowed me to talk to my parents over the phone,” Mehedi said.

He is now happy that he can return home and unite with his family soon.