From lofty dreams to brutal deaths

Migrants from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan wait to be taken to a Spanish NGO's boat during the rescue of 65 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast on Feb. 10. (Photo: AFP)

The brutal killing of 26 Bangladeshi and four African men in Libyan desert town Mizda by a mafia gang has grabbed global attention over the scourge of human trafficking.

Another 11 Bangladeshis, seriously wounded in the attack on May 28, were admitted to hospital. 

The horrific tragedy sent shockwaves across Bangladesh and triggered a massive media and public outcry. This was the worst massacre of Bangladeshi people in a foreign land since the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.

Requests from families and relatives to bring back the bodies to Bangladesh fell on deaf ears and the victims were reportedly buried where they were killed.

Media investigations revealed that the dead and the injured were victims of people smuggling and most of them were headed for Italy, which is just across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.

Bangladesh stopped legal migration to Libya since the start of its civil war after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, yet traffickers continued to operate effectively to smuggle Bangladeshis time and again.

The latest revelations prompted a manhunt by police and an alleged kingpin, Kamal Uddin ails Haji Kamal, accused of trafficking hundreds of Bangladeshis to Libya since 1997, was arrested.

Kamal, 55, is known as a haji who made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, philanthropist and respected man in his village in Kushtia district of western Bangladesh.

Lawmen alleged that Kamal used his tile and construction business as a front for human trafficking.

In a video interview, Tarikul Islam, one of the massacre survivors, recalled how he paid 450,000 taka (US$5,294) to one of Kamal’s agents and joined a group of 30 men who traveled from Bangladesh with valid passports and tourist visas via Nepal, Dubai and Egypt to finally reach Benghazi in Libya six months ago.

The agent in Libya sold them to a mafia gang on the way to Tripoli from Benghazi and they were locked up in a camp with another nine Bangladeshi men and dozens of Africans including Sudanese and Egyptians.

The mafia gang demanded US$12,000 from each of the inmates for their release and brutally tortured them with electric shocks and beatings with iron pipes every day. They were not given enough food and water, so some of them died.

Presumably frustrated over their confinement and abuse, a group of inmates attacked and killed one of their captors. Retaliation came with a barbaric revenge attack which left 30 murdered by machine gun fire.     

Such savagery is a tragic result of the unbridled scourge of human trafficking inflicted on poor people from Bangladesh and elsewhere.

Home, homeland and aliens

Rohingya refugees arrive in Bangladesh from Rakhine state of Myanmar in 2017 (Photo: AFP)

Home is a place always close to our hearts, not only because we were born, grew up and belong there but also because home is where there is love and care.

Our homeland is an extended version of home, which in addition invokes our patriotism.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and long lockdowns, we have been staying home not only because we love and care but mostly to save lives. But this long confinement at home has not been loving and caring for everyone as people are under pressure from loss of work and income, mental anguish and fear of death.

The troubles are even more dire for tens of thousands of internal and overseas migrant workers who returned home penniless and hopeless.

Despite this turmoil, people should remain calm and consider themselves luckier than the millions of poor souls around the world who are deprived of home and homeland.

There are nearly 70.8 million forcibly displaced people in the world, according to United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

People are displaced by natural disasters and conflicts, and they are referred to by many names — refugees, stateless, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, etc.

Maybe we should call them aliens, because they are alienated from what we all love — home and homeland.