Back home after months of ordeal

Their faces etched with agonies they underwent just to pursue their dreams.

The joy of 150 trafficking victims of making it back home seemed to be overshadowed by the sufferings, torture and starvation they endured on way to Malaysia on a boat.

Some said they witnessed horrifying and inhuman incidents during their journey, while a few others summed up their experience in one word: “nightmare.”

“We saw deaths before our very eyes,” said one of the victims while getting into a bus at Ghumdhum in Naikhanchhari upazila of Bandarban.

Uncertainty about their future was apparent on the faces of the victims, mostly below 18.

The Myanmar Border Guard Police handed them over to the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) yesterday. They entered the Bangladesh territory through the Ghumdhum point around 2:00pm, reports our Cox's Bazar correspondent.

The Myanmar authorities on May 21 rescued a total of 208 boatpeople on their way to Malaysia and claimed that all the victims were from Bangladesh. But following verification of their identities by the foreign and home ministries, only 150 were identified as Bangladeshis, said Col Khalequzzaman, commander of the BGB's Cox's Bazar sector. The rest are believed to be Rohingyas.

Yesterday, the 150 were brought back home following a three-and-a-half-hour meeting between the BGB and the Myanmar Immigration and Registration Department.

Lt Col Saiful Alam Khandaker, commanding officer of the BGB 17 battalion in Cox's Bazar; and Swo Mewing, deputy director of Myanmar Immigration department; led their respective sides at the meeting from around 11:00am in Dekibunia of Myanmar. Police, immigration, home ministry and foreign ministry officials were also in the Bangladesh delegation.

After the meeting, Khalequzzaman told newsmen that all the Bangladeshis rescued so far in Myanmar would be brought back home.

Asked about another 727 rescued victims, he said their identities could not be ascertained yet and therefore, he could not comment about their repatriation.

Swo Mewing thanked the Bangladesh government and other international organisations for assisting Myanmar in repatriating the victims.

The 150 people were first taken to Ghumghum High School premises by six buses. Later, BGB officials handed them over to Cox's Bazar Superintended of Police Shyamal Kumar Nath in presence of Md Ali Hossain, Deputy Commissioner of Cox's Bazar.

The buses reached Cox's Bazar around 4:00pm. The victims were taken to a temporary camp set up at a cultural centre in the town. They will be handed over to their families at the centre after legal formalities, said the SP.

“We'll talk to each of the 150 people separately and record their statements,” he added.