DHAKA // Nazrul Islam was one of the lucky ones – he made it back to Bangladesh alive.
Hundreds of others who sneak out on rickety boats either drown in South East Asia’s seas or get dumped in mass graves like those discovered in Thailand and Malaysia this month.
Islam, who took the journey in 2013, had no idea it would be so bad.
“The ship is like a death trap,” the 22-year-old said from Elomdi village in central Bangladesh, about a 90-minute drive from Dhaka.
“Once you’re on it, there’s no going back.”
As a boat people crisis emerged in South East Asia in recent weeks, nearly all the focus has been on the Rohingya: the persecuted Muslim minority fleeing Myanmar.
But of the more than 3,000 people who have come ashore this month in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, about half were from Bangladesh, according to the UN refugee agency.
Most are poor labourers seeking better jobs and a brighter future. While Bangladesh is no longer the economic sinkhole it was in the past, poverty hangs on.
The economy is growing at more than 6 per cent and the UN’s development report now ranks Bangladesh among countries like India and Egypt.
But GDP per capita is just over US$1,000 (Dh3,670) a year. Work can be miserable in the textile factories, making many – especially young people – susceptible to the sales pitches of fast-talking traffickers paid a bonus for every person they lure on board.
The traffickers spun stories that were unimaginable to their listeners.
Mia was promised what sounded like a leisurely weeklong cruise to Malaysia and a dreamlike life once he got there.
“They told me I would be on a ship so big I could play cricket. I would be offered good and tasty food during my journey,” he said.
“But they did not give us food. They beat us mercilessly. They kicked us whenever we wanted food or even talked to someone else,” he said, his eyes filled with tears and his legs covered in bruises from the beatings he endured.
For Islam, the pitch sounded irresistible: take a boat to Malaysia and make 40,000 taka (Dh1,890) a month – about seven times more than he could make in Bangladesh.
He paid only 5,000 taka up front to start the journey, which took him to the tourist town of Cox’s Bazar and then to Teknaf, one of Bangladesh’s southernmost points.
They boarded a fishing boat, sailed into the Bay of Bengal for about eight hours before they reached a bigger vessel already packed with both Bangladeshis and Rohingya.
The nine-day journey was hellish. Islam was forced into the ship’s underbelly, which was dark, hot and smelly. When he tried to poke his head out above deck, a guard beat him.
“I almost lost sense of time,” Islam said. “I was thinking of my wife, my nine-month-old daughter, my parents back home.”
When they arrived near southern Thailand, the traffickers demanded payment of 250,000 taka to enter Malaysia. Those who could not pay would be killed.
Islam called his family in Bangladesh, which spent 10 days raising money from friends to pay the fee.
Others were not so lucky.
Sona Mia has not seen his son and son-in-law since November 2013, when they left for Malaysia on a similar journey.
“I am still waiting for them to arrive home,” he said, fighting back tears.
* Bloomberg and Associated Press
