DOHAR (Bangladesh): Tears roll down Hajera Khatun’s face as her son recounts the nine days he spent lost at sea without food or drinking water after an illegal attempt to enter Italy ended in tragedy.

Robiul Islam gambled his life for the chance to work in Europe. But soon after setting off, the group of 53 men who had each paid people traffickers 13,000 dollars, realised that the inexperienced crew was in trouble.

Then the engine failed leaving their tiny boat drifting “like a piece of paper” in the Mediterranean.

Twenty migrants and two Moroccan crew members died and Robiul and his cousin contemplated cannibalism before the Algerian navy finally spotted the boat and rescued the 33 survivors.

Each day since he returned to Bangladesh, hundreds of villagers have flocked to his mother’s home to hear Robiul’s story. Despite the risks, many will undertake similar journeys of their own.

“We were so excited but it turned out to be the biggest mistake of our lives,” says Robiul, who is typical of many illegal migrants from the impoverished country where up to eight million people work overseas, only about half legally.

“We boarded the boat at three in the morning in the freezing cold somewhere along the Moroccan coast. The agent said that soon we would be reaching our dream destination.

“We were supposed to be there within four hours but after six hours we realised that the crew didn’t know anything about running a small boat.

“Two hours later we found that we didn’t have any food and water. After ten hours, the boat’s engine stopped.”

As the weather changed the waves started to pound the small boat. The men, 26 Bangladeshis and 27 Africans, clung together to avoid being swept overboard.

On the third day some of the migrants resorted to drinking sea water.

“Some pulled off their clothes and were crying like babies. One thought he had already reached Italy and was asking us to hire a taxi in the middle of the sea,” he recalls.

“That night a young man with a sweet smile called Mustaq died. His brother Himel who had persuaded Mustaq to come with us put his head in his lap and sat motionless until he also died six hours later.

“Seven more died the next day. They all became insane. Some of them attacked us, biting our bodies,” he adds pointing to bite marks on his legs.

— ‘We took a steel plate to try to chop off some part of him’ —

The migrants ate their passports and anything else they could find anything they could in the hope of staying alive.

Boats passed in the distance but failed to spot them or hear their cries for help.

“From the fifth day we didn’t even have the energy to shout any more. Our boat was drifting like a tiny piece of paper in the mighty sea,” says Robiul.

“Then on the fifth night the rains came from nowhere. We opened up a tarpaulin to catch the water and that 30 minutes of rain saved our lives.

“On the eighth day one of the Africans died and for the first time me and my cousin, Mamun, thought of eating his flesh. We took a steel plate to try to chop off some part of him, but we could not bring ourselves to do it.”

“Finally, everyone except me and one African man showed signs of madness. Then we saw a small navy ship and a helicopter came and circled overhead.”

Robiul spent two months in hospital in Algeria recovering from his ordeal before returning to Bangladesh last week.

Back in his home town of Dohar, 50 kilometres from Dhaka, he is the subject of intense curiosity.

Six of the 11 Bangladeshis who died were from the town and almost every family here has at least one relative working abroad.

Around 3.9 million Bangladeshis work abroad although the actual number could be as high as seven or eight million, said Ali Haider, the general secretary of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA).

“We only count the ones who go through the official channels because it is impossible for us to track others who take the illegal routes,” says Bangladesh’s overseas employment minister Kamrul Islam.

“We have told them repeatedly not to take the illegal routes, not to pay money to non-licensed recruiting agents. It can cause loss of life and prison sentences. But no-one cares,” he says.

The migrants, mostly unskilled, face grinding poverty at home where nearly half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

They go in search of the modest dream of earning enough money to feed their families.

Many sell everything and borrow heavily to pay varying amounts to people traffickers whose promises of jobs and work permits often prove hollow.

— Large remittances inspire other would-be migrants —

According to the Bangladesh Travel Agents’ Society, the dirt-poor country has more than 2,000 illegal travel agencies that serve as fronts for people traffickers.

Earlier this month police in Italy arrested the leaders of a gang that earned 1.28 million dollars a year smuggling Bangladeshis into the country.

For both legal and illegal migrants, the gamble can end in misery and exploitation. Last October a Bangladeshi truck driver was taken hostage in Iraq by militants trying to force foreign companies out of the war-ravaged country, though he was later released.

Migrants take a range of jobs from manual labouring on building sites to cleaning and domestic work.

Saudi Arabia has about one million legal and 400,000 illegal Bangladeshi workers with legal male migrants able to earn between 80 and 160 dollars a month depending on their skill levels. Illegal male workers can earn slightly more, up to 185 dollars, but are at greater risk of being cheated by employers, says Momtazuddin Ahmed, secretary of BAIRA.—AFP