Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh (BBN)-In January 2014, 20-year-old Robiul Karim started on a journey he hoped would transform him from a poorly paid rickshaw driver in a Bangladesh to a well-paid factory worker in Malaysia, and would give him the opportunity to send money home to his family.
His plan was to take a boat from a coastal village in Bangladesh to Thailand, where he would walk over the border into Malaysia and find work. Before leaving, Karim was optimistic about his prospects, reports Al Jazeera.
“I was told that I would not need to pay any money in advance, that I would have to give the $2,200 fee only after I got a job in Malaysia, and that the boat would be a nice steamer, not a fishing boat,” he recalled.
The only warning he was given was to not tell anyone that he was going — not even his family.
Sixteen months later, Karim is back in Bangladesh, never having set foot in Malaysia. His parents are now living with relatives, as they were forced to sell their home to rescue their son from traffickers based in jungle camps in Thailand.
Karim told his story a few weeks after the discovery of mass graves in Thailand and Malaysia. Officials believe that the graves contain the bodies of hundreds of migrants who died while traveling in boats from Bangladesh.
Most of those migrants likely began their journeys as Karim did, in the coastal city of Cox’s Bazar, a holiday destination where coves are full of fishing boats. Located in the southernmost tip of Bangladesh, the city is a launching pad from which human traffickers routinely smuggle migrants into Southeast Asia. Stories of missing men circulate in almost every village around Cox’s Bazar, and especially in the town of Teknaf. It is common for residents to approach journalists with pictures of missing relatives, unsure whether their family members are dead, in jail or someplace else.
Illegal migration has been happening for many years, but the number of people attempting this journey is on the rise. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in the first three months of 2015, about 25,000 people embarked on trips similar to Karim’s. That figure is twice as high as it has been over the same period of time for the past two years, and traffickers working this sea route are estimated by UNHCR to generate up to $100 million a year.
Unlike in previous years, traffickers are now relying on tricks and extortion. “Illegal trafficking to Malaysia has been going on for a long time, but years ago the traffickers were upfront and the families knew that a phone call would come and they would have to pay. Now deception is common,” said Stina Ljungdell, the UNHCR representative based in Bangladesh.
Karim soon discovered that there was no luxury ship. He had been cajoled into going to Malaysia by a local man he knew only as Zahid who also persuaded two others from Karim’s village to go with them. After gathering one night at Kachubunia Ghat, a small fishing cove on the southern coast of Bangladesh, the four traveled overnight on a small fishing boat with 16 other people before they were transferred to a large cattle boat.
There Karim spent 28 days forced to sit on his knees with the sun bearing down as the boat, carrying 200 people, traveled through the Bay of Bengal and the Andean Sea. Like him, other passengers had arrived on small fishing boats. “Those who complained or cried were tied up with rope,” he said. In a month at sea, he saw 10 people die from dehydration or starvation. “Their bodies were tossed into the ocean.” UNHCR estimates that in 2014 alone, 750 people died at sea.
On the boat, Karim was told he would only be released if he paid his captors $1,800. “They made us phone our families and get them to send money for our release. When I called my family, it was the first time they knew I left for Malaysia,” Karim said.
In a panic, Karim’s family sold their homestead and gave the money to the wife of the man who had organized the trip. As a reward for convincing three others to travel with him, Zahid, the organizer, did not have to pay for his own journey.
After the cattle boat landed in Thailand, survivors were detained in a jungle camp that housed more than 1,200 people and was guarded by eight armed men.
Once traffickers confirmed that Karim’s family had sent the money, he was given a yellow wristband. For the first time he became hopeful that he might soon be released and would be able to make it to Malaysia.
But before that could happen, Thai authorities swooped in and arrested him along with 400 others. Karim spent nine months in jail before the Bangladesh authorities organized his repatriation. He returned to his village three months ago.
The two friends that Karim traveled with avoided being arrested and successfully made their way to Malaysia. “They have got jobs and have started sending $250 back to their families, each month,” Karim said. However, after his experience, he says that he no longer dreams of working abroad. “After my ordeal, I am not jealous of my friends."
About half of those who risk the trips to Malaysia are, like Karim, Bangladeshi citizens. Some of them, like Karim’s friends, do succeed in getting there and finding work. However, many suffer traumatic experiences, others die from the brutal conditions of the trip, and others still are killed by traffickers.
BBN/SK/AD