An iron-willed Bangladeshi mother managed to bring back her son, who was kidnapped by Libyan human traffickers in Tripoli.
Shahinoor Begum exerted all efforts in the search for her kidnapped son even, despite being told there was no hope.
The 45-year-old Bangladeshi mother sold her properties and spent around Tk 20 lakh in ransoms to have her son released from a human trafficking gang, according to The Daily Star news.
She travelled from her village, to the war-torn Libyan city of Benghazi to search for her son Yakub Hossain, aged around 20.
“People around me said my son was dead, some said he was killed, but I refused to believe them. I sold everything we had to bring my son back. I paid about Tk 20 lakh to his captors in four instalments for his release. I still couldn’t find him. Then I went to Libya,” Shahinoor told a Daily Star correspondent.
On 21 March, the mother returned to her village in Debidwar with her son. Shahinoor said her husband, who also lives in Libya, suffered from two heart attacks after their son went missing.
“It destroyed our financial stability. I spent days crying, not sure what to do. Then I decided to go to Libya,” she said.
“It was my first trip outside Bangladesh, I was alone. After reaching Benghazi, I started contacting people who could speak in Bangla, I told them about my missing son. Seeing me cry, some of them contacted the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which helped me rescue my son.”
Shahinoor said she was able to arrange a phone call between her and Yakub. “When I heard my son’s voice on the other end, I could not hold my tears. My son was also crying.” He told her he was in Tripoli.
After arriving in Bangladesh, Yakub said he went to Libya on a tourist visa in May 2019 to become a migrant worker. He started working at an oil company in Benghazi for a monthly salary of around Bangladeshi Tk 35,000.
Looking for a better life, Yakub decided to migrate to Italy at the beginning of last year. This was on the advice of a man named Jahangir, and paid Tk 4 lakh to a broker named Rafiq.
He was caught by the Libyan Coast Guard, and placed in jail along with 300 others, he said. “Around six months later, I tried to go to Italy again. This time, the human traffickers got hold of us,” he said.
“They took our mobile phones, our money, our clothes, everything. We were kept in a small room that resembled a grave for 7 days. There was no light or air. Meals were given 2-3 days a week. They beat us once a day, they used to beat us with whatever they could find,” he said.
The victims were kept in a slaughterhouse where some of the hostages died of starvation, he added.