Some 28 Bangladeshis have been held captive in Libya before being trafficked to Europe by the organised armed goons there. They are now being tortured in many ways for extracting ransom from their relatives, according to their family members.
Being allured by the local member of organised international human trafficking gang, these 28 young people of Kalkini upazila under Madaripur District left the country for Libya in search of work in Europe illegally four months ago. Victims’ family members alleged that they are now being asked to pay ransom to Farhad Matubbar, chairman of Goplapur Union Parishad, the local human trafficker, if they want to see their sons alive.
We hope that the government will take an immediate step
to rescue the young people from the armed goons and bring them back home
A video clip which went on viral showing Farhad Matubbar was extracting ransom from victims’ relatives and issuing threat to give more money. According to the agreement, they would have to pay a total of taka nine lakh each. Of the total money, they have to pay fifty percent before reaching Libya and the rest after transferring them to Italy.
These Bangladeshis went to Libya by paying Farhad Tk four-five lakh each. Later, they also paid taka five lakh each as per the agreement. But after paying the total money, the armed goons in Libya in consultation with their local agent Farhad Matubbar, have kept the young people hostage and torturing them physically to extract more five lakh from each as ransom.
This is not only a single story of 28 young men but we also continued witnessing torture and deaths of our young people while crossing Mediterranean Sea to trespass into the European countries illegally. Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing in recent years, many of them fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. It has been noticed over the past years, youths in different districts of the country have become desperate to migrate to European countries, even at great risk to their finances and personal safety. In consequence, many youths went missing while they were crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach European countries including Italy and Greece using Libya and Turkey as transit points. And a good number of them went missing before they reached the destination.
The government has taken various measures to promote legal migration but many Bangladeshis try to reach European countries illegally resulting in tragic and frequent deaths. Therefore, we all have to build strong and united resistance against human-trafficking so that our youths will not be allured to go abroad illegally. It is priority to all of us to work together with the government to refrain our youths from going Europe illegally. We hope that the government will take an immediate step to rescue the young people from the armed goons and bring them back home.