Idris Jamddar, who has come back from near death experience on the Mediterranean while on an illegal boat journey to Italy, has said that at one point, the boatman was instructed by the middleman to deliberately scuttle the vessel and kill everyone since the motor of the launch became inoperative.
“We pleaded with the boatman not to listen to the instructions of the middleman and thus were spared from a horrible end”, says Idris, who has come back to Bangladesh on Jun 21 along with 17 other Bangladeshis.
Idris used to work as a cleaner at a private university in Libya and fell into the trap of illegal human traffickers who lured him with tales of luxury and comfort in Italy.
“Our middleman, Rafiqul Islam Selim took Tk 300,000 from each person as passage fare to Italy and then kept us locked in a room for two months without regular food or water.”
One day, they were put on a trawler and told that we would reach Italy without any problem, said Idris while recounting his ordeal, adding: “We did not want to get on that boat since it was rickety but were forced to in face of intimidation and beating.”
At one point, the boat engine stopped working and the middleman gave the boatman the order to kill everyone by sinking the vessel.
In the last ten years, 100,000 Bangladeshis entered Europe through sea and Bangladeshi nationals make the fourth largest section of illegal entrants to Europe. In the last seven years, 6,906 persons lost lives while trying to go to Europe via the Mediterranean; and, more than 12,000 are still missing.