Escapes death but endures endless suffering

Sujan Hossain, now eight years old, was the lucky one. In June 2012 he was one of fourteen children in Dinajpur and Thakurgaon who fell sick after eating toxic litchis from gardens recently sprayed with pesticide. All were treated at Dinajpur Medical College Hospital. Sujan alone survived. Five years later however, the boy suffers the long-term effects of the poisoning.

"Sujan always mumbles to himself at home," says his distraught father Md Jalal Uddin, from Jasral village in Dinajpur's Biral upazila. "He reacts to everything badly. He is sleepless." The boy is currently a class-two student of Jharpukur Government Primary School.

"All he did was to buy some litchis fallen from an orchard," his father explains, "and that night, he ate two of them." By morning his son had a strong stomach ache and was vomiting. His parents rushed Sujan to the nearby Biral Upazila Health Complex, from where he was referred to the hospital in Dinajpur. "My son was in hospital for a week," says Jalal Uddin.

Sujan's family want exemplary punishment for those who caused the deaths of the other children and Sujan's ongoing suffering.

Meanwhile, Nure Asa from Purba Moheshpur village in Biral, who is the mother of Shaila, one of the children who died, urges the government to file a case against the pesticide trader and litchi farmers responsible for the 2012 catastrophe.

Unfortunately it's not the only time children have died in the region after eating pesticide-sprayed litchis. In 2015 another eleven children succumbed after eating the toxic fruit.

Pesticide traders have told The Daily Star that excessive use of pesticides by litchi farmers used to be a common practice.

"I stopped eating litchis due to the large amounts of pesticide the farmers use," says one pesticide trader Rafiqul Islam. "But the trend of using such large amounts is on the decline now."

Nonetheless excessive pesticide use is a practice from which traders benefit. "Pesticide sellers earn a lot of money across the district each litchi season," says Aminul Islam from Rampur village in Biral.

One litchi orchardist, Anwarul Islam from Madhabbati village in Biral says the deaths of children in 2012 and 2015 have made growers more aware of the dangers. "Most orchardists avoid excessive pesticide use nowadays," he says.