Staff Reporter :
Eight bodies of Bangladeshi nationals who died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya by boat to reach Italy were brought to Dhaka on Thursday.
A flight carrying the eight bodies landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at around 12:30 p.m.
The deceased were identified as Mamun Sheikh, Sajal Bairagi, Nayan Biswas, Rifat Sheikh, Sajib Kazi, Imrul Kayes Apon, Md Abdur Kaiser, and Rasel Sheikh. All of them were the residents of Madaripur and Gopalganj.
The relatives of the deceased, waiting to receive the bodies at the airport, said that the middlemen had taken 52 people on a small boat. The eight people who died were put in a plastic bag under the boat.
They tried to come out from under the boat due to an oxygen crisis. However, the middlemen pushed them back there. It is because of this torture and oxygen crisis that they died.
An additional deputy commissioner of the Uttara Division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said that a murder case has been filed at the airport police station in connection with the incident.
He said that the bodies would be handed over to the deceased family members following proper legal procedures.
Shaon Fakir, the brother-in-law of the deceased Md. Kaiser, said that the middlemen had taken eight lakh to carry Kaiser from Libya to Italy. He said they had promised to take him to Italy on a big boat.
A maximum of 15 to 20 people could board that boat, but there were 52 people, including Kaiser, he said.
“As there were too many people, eight, including Kaiser, were kept under the boat,” he said.
Shaon Fakir further said that Kaiser has two young daughters. “How will the daughters survive without their father?” he said.
Sources said that on February 14, a group of migrants set off on a boat from the coast of Libya at around 11 p.m. local time, aiming to reach Europe.
When the boat reached the coast of Tunisia, a shipwreck occurred at around 4 a.m. There were a total of 53 people on the boat, including 52 passengers and one driver.
After the accident, 44 of them were rescued alive. Among them, 27 are Bangladeshi citizens; eight are from Pakistan; five are from Syria; and three are from Egypt.
Nine passengers on the boat were killed in the incident. Among them, eight were Bangladeshis. The other deceased person was a Pakistani national.
Meanwhile, Sunil Bairagi, the father of deceased Sajal Bairagi, filed a case with the Airport Police Station on April 19.
The charges include organised murder (Section 302/34) and violations of the Human Trafficking Prevention Act. Juboraj Kazi, 24, and Mosharraf Kazi, who live in Libya, have been made accused in the case.
In Libya, on April 30, Bangladeshi diplomats led by Major General (Retd.) Abul Hasnat Muhammad Khairul Bashar, Bangladeshi Ambassador to Libya, were present at the Tunis International Airport to transfer the bodies to the airport authorities.
On February 14, the officials of the Bangladeshi Embassy in Tripoli worked with the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and local authorities to ascertain the identity, verification, and issuance of identity through local institutions, death, and medical certificates.
In addition, coordination was carried out with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Africa Wing to repatriate the bodies. Assistance from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment is being utilised to meet necessary expenses.