The journeys to death

Lure of jobs has led many youths to go on a perilous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to the shores of Europe, especially Italy. Of the hundreds of thousands who embark on such a dangerous journey from different countries, thousands are from Bangladesh. According to the UNHCR data, last year, close to 160,000 who went on a risky voyage across the Mediterranean on board rickety boats bound for Italy from different corners of the world, some 13,000 were Bangladeshis. But all these illegal migrants undertaking such hazardous journey are not lucky. Many ill-fated travellers are either tortured to death by traffickers or end up in a watery grave as they are often squashed like sardines on board the boats they undertake the journey. Last year, the UN report says, 1,897 went missing during the treacherous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.

Twenty-two years old Mamun Sheikh of Rajoir upazila of Madaripur was one of the eight Bangladeshi victims whose journey to Italy ended in a tragedy. He along with seven other Bangladeshis choked to death under the deck of their traffickers' boat. As the deck of the boat was too small to accommodate 53 migrants, the ill-fated eight including Mamun were forced to go inside boat's hull. They died there for want of oxygen. Thus ended the journey of Mamun Sheikh and his fellow travellers to the dreamland of Europe!

 The bodies of all those eight youths, some of them in their late teens, reached Dhaka last Thursday (May 2) by a Saudia Airlines flight to be received by their heartbroken parents and relatives.

The tragedy took place off the coast of Tunisia where the coastguards of that country recovered the living as well as the dead from the traffickers' engine-propelled boat.

Such tragic end of dozens of Bangladeshi youth grabs media headlines from time to time. Even so, there is no end of fresh recruits by brokers who inveigle the youths into the death trap.

In 2022, around 15,000 Bangladeshi youths illegally tried to migrate in the same manner to Italy with help of traffickers.

According to a study, between 2009 and 2023, around 70,900 illegally travelled with the help of traffickers to Europe and their route was Libya. Notably, the aforementioned Mamun Sheikh and others who died at the traffickers' hands also had travelled to Libya via Dubai before they started their fateful journey to Italy. The UNHCR further reports that traffickers take their Europe-bound victims through some seven routes and all these routes start either from Libya or Turkey. Among those, the one through the central Mediterranean that begins from Libya and ends up in Italy is the most travelled route. The youths from Bangladesh who fall prey to traffickers' deception pay to their agents -- so-called brokers -- to the tune of Tk 1.5 million each in advance as passage money to Europe. But once they are in control of the traffickers, their ordeal begins. They are actually held to ransom and subjected to inhuman treatment at every step of the journey to extort more money from their hostages' family members in Bangladesh.  Thus the dreams of the Europe-bound youths are shattered the moment they are put in the so-called 'game ghor', the temporary shelter where they are kept before the voyage to Italy begins. But those 'game ghors' are basically torture chambers. But youths are still attracted to such dangerous journeys.

The stories of successful travellers after all the ordeals they undergo perhaps inspire the youths to take the challenge. The traffickers' agents take advantage of this. Those agents are people familiar with the victims and their family members. Traffickers' agents convince victims of their 'bright future' in Europe. This is how another youth, Kamrul Hasan Bappy (21) of Naria upazila in Shariatpur died of hypothermia while crossing the Mediterranean Sea in January 2022. He was among seven others from Bangladesh who died from extreme cold under the same circumstances off the coast of Italy. In Kamrul's case, his father, Abul Bashar, said the traffickers' agents 'brainwashed' his son, who was otherwise doing well with his business as a grocer. Kamrul also used the same route as Mamun Sheikh to reach Libya via Dubai.

Since the conjurors who dupe the gullible village youths into undertaking deadly journeys to Europe are in many cases the victims' acquaintances, they must be exposed.

The Public Security Division of the home ministry in its National Plan of Action for Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking 2023-25 has identified three districts-Cox's Bazar, Mymensingh and Jessore-as hotspots for human trafficking.

But what measures have been taken so far to stop trafficking of youths from these hotspots? There are also anti-trafficking tribunals in seven divisions empowered by the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act. But cases related to human trafficking, some 3,700 of them, against 34,500 accused individuals are learnt to be pending in courts. But justice delayed is justice denied. The traffickers who are misguiding thousands of youths of the country to join the death march must be punished.

Youths who are being preyed on by traffickers are not from the very poor segment of society because they can pay more than a million taka to agents or brokers. They sell property including lands and even take loans from relatives and village money lenders to pay the passage cost to traffickers' agents. These families are obviously rendered poorer as soon as the tragedies strike.

The government should be able to ferret out traffickers and their agents and hold them to justice.

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