Introduction
In an interview with The Daily Star (2023), the managing director of SOS Humanity shared that more than 26,000 people have died in the Mediterranean since 2014 while attempting to cross the sea to enter Europe. The journey across the Mediterranean is a story of life, death, happiness, future, and above all security—security from persecution, hunger, war, and uncertainty. Every year, thousands of Bangladeshis, predominantly from three districts—Munshiganj, Shariatpur, and Madaripur—sail from Libya in search of a secure life. Some leave for economic reasons; others have expired visas in the Middle East; and many have dreams of success and security in Europe. Although their reasons are different and subjective, all share the experience of paying large sums of money to reach Europe, because once they reach the Libyan “game house,” there is no turning back—the only way to survive is to participate in the perilous journey known as “the game.” From that point onward, only stories of success are shared, as those who lose in this game are already dead beneath the Mediterranean. If the game is successful, no one knows their story, as it becomes a nightmare better forgotten. In this project, I interviewed 4 Bangladeshi migrants and an official from the Bangladesh Embassy in Rome to understand the horror of this so-called game and to record their individual voices. This project will be their platform to share their experiences and to show the reality of the people crossing the Mediterranean through Libya.
The reasons behind leaving Bangladesh and Libya
Pushpita Das (2016, Chapter 1) states the reason and pattern behind the illegal migration from Bangladesh. The author describes the socio-political, economic, and job insecurity that leads Bangladeshi citizens to flee to their mostly neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Mezran and Miller discussed the key complexities after the American intervention in Libya in 2011. The authors talked about the failed state following Gaddafi’s fall due to the power vacuum, which made Libya a fragile proxy warfare ground for the neighboring powerful states. They also described the internal division between the government and the army, which affected Libya’s economy based on oil and other natural resources. The consequence was the surge of Bangladeshi migrants leaving Libya after Gaddafi’s fall due to economic and social uncertainty. Bangladeshi migrants arrived in Libya with the hope of better earning, but the Arab Spring created political and economic uncertainty, which forced these migrants to take risky decisions like crossing the Mediterranean.
The recent notion of “the game”
The term game means crossing a border illegally with the help of smugglers or any other third party, where significant mental, physical, and financial risk is involved. There are notable mentions of “the game” on the Balkan route, but the Central Mediterranean is rarely mentioned as the voyage is shorter and the death rate is higher. The Missing Migrant Project confirms that in 2020, nearly 1000 people disappeared or died in only the Central Mediterranean, and 40 percent of boats were intercepted by border control. The aforementioned literature does give an overall idea of the game, but it again mentions nothing about Bangladeshi citizens. Additionally, Somoy Television (2022) gives important insights about “the game” and how a group of Bangladeshi mafia is involved in it. According to the presenter, R. Jannat this mafia has groups of people in both Bangladesh and Libya, where they work together to convince people to come to Libya via Dubai. This group doesn’t only charge a large sum from Bangladeshis to reach Libya; they also force them to pay a large sum by caging them in so-called ‘game ghor’, where a large number of people live and wait together to have their turn to cross the Mediterranean.
Crossing the Mediterranean in rubber or wooden boats
The Daily Star (2023), together with DW (2023), reported that Libya is one of the deadliest routes of illegal migration, considering all the routes in the world. In the documentary, journalist Anupom Dev boarded a rescue ship and rescued a few rubber boats in just a single night, which carried hundreds of people, the successful campaigners, or one may call them the winners of the game. This documentary report is based on Bangladeshi mainstream media, partnered with one of the leading media agencies in Europe, but has not talked about Bangladeshi migrants aspiring to enter Europe. On the other hand, Infomigrant (2022) talks about Sobuj, a Bangladeshi citizen from Shariatpur who came to Libya by paying 4000 euros initially to work in Benghazi, Libya. The article also confirms that he was later beaten when he asked his employer about his pending wage, which made him leave for Italy by crossing the Mediterranean. Although the news shared important insights into the numbers and figures, it failed to stipulate the reasons as well as the actual scene in this 24-hour journey. This paper aims to capture the history of Bangladeshi migrants by using oral history methodology, with the goal of filling the literature gap by demonstrating the actual experience of the migrants who entered Italy in the last fifteen years.
The Game
The game starts in the country of origin, where a person or a group of people try to enter illegally in a country of destination, using one or several third countries. In this process, significant risk is involved as they pay a lot of money to the intermediate agencies or the human trafficking mafias, using boats, cars, walks, or other means of risky transportation. The game is a strategic interaction between migrants, smugglers, and authorities, with each of them having their own goal. The migrants often face political and economic hardships due to war and persecution in their home countries, which force them to reach a destination where they will have better financial and political opportunities. The most famous game routes in Europe are the CMR and EMR. CMR, which is short for Central Mediterranean Route, is a sea route of approximately 300 km from the Libyan coast of Zuwara to the Italian island of Lampedusa. After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, whose authoritarian rule lasted for more than 40 years, civil war followed. In the wake of this civil war, Libya became one of the most important points for smugglers, as they helped migrants cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe. From the interviews that I have conducted, the migrants from Bangladesh who crossed Libya in 2011 paid around 1200 to 1500 Libyan dinars (which were worth more than a thousand dollars at the time) to get into an overcrowded boat.
When asked about the experiences, my first interviewee said, “I was unlucky as I had to sit on the lower deck, where breathing is very difficult since my boat had over 600 people and its capacity was 150”. The second interviewee shared, “I immediately regretted boarding the boat since I saw more Syrian and African refugees and thought they had nothing to lose, and I have everything to lose here.” The actual journey from the Libyan coast of Tripoli and Zuwara to Italy is a very difficult one where the boat is often intercepted and rescued. “The captain of our boat was also a migrant like us who paid nothing or a lot less than us. Probably he was more educated, and he got trained just 2 hours before the deadly voyage. Then he got a paper map where the instructions were written in Arabic, and with that, he started guiding our ship to Italy. Our engine was dead after several hours of the voyage, and the ship caught a storm and was circling abruptly in the Mediterranean. We all started to pray as we thought that we would die, but luckily, an oil-carrying ship notified some Italian authorities who were nearby and rescued us. It took over 28 hours on the rescue ship for us to reach Italian soil, so just imagine where we were during the storm. It is impossible to reach through this kind of boat, and I think over 90 percent of the boats are rescued. Over 90 percent of those who are lucky, as you know, the unlucky ones are deep underneath the sea,” shared two friends who crossed the Mediterranean from Tripoli to Italy in 2013.
Why are people taking such a risk?
The central Mediterranean is mostly crossed by migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. They evade hunger, persecution, and prolonged conflict for years, which leads them to risk their lives just for a better future. Bangladesh, despite having no geographical connection with Italy, has provided a significant number of people who crossed the Mediterranean. Bangladeshis migrated in the 1980s and 1990s due to political stability in Libya, as Libya undertook many ambitious development projects funded by its newfound oil wealth. The post-1971 population boom, together with high unemployment and political instability, pushed people out of Bangladesh and made them relocate all over the world. The emigrant soon formed a network that attracted even more aspiring migrants, as Bangladesh never had a lack of people.
In 2011, the Arab Spring changed the whole equation, as dictators around the Arab world were toppled, marking a new era of democracy in some countries but regional wars in others. Libya was ravaged by a civil war for 6 years. During this time, the country was fragmented as different groups tried to seize control over the country. A significant number of Bangladeshi people already working in Benghazi, Tripoli, or near the coastal area of Zuwara decided to leave, but the only option was to leave for Europe. These migrants considered Italy their safest close destination with higher chances of getting asylum because of the EU asylum framework and Italian comparative soft deportation rules, since their passports were confiscated by the company that they had been working for. The interviewees revealed that the currency was devalued for a while, and the bank stopped working following the 2014 civil war. People carried cash in their pockets, which was often stolen by the Libyan thugs. They also disclosed that Libya became lawless, and they had to work longer shifts with no payment for months. One interviewee who worked in Benghazi said, “When I asked them to return my passport, they told me that I was under contract and therefore could not get it. I did not get my salary for 3 months, and that night some people came and beat me up for protesting because they had to control our voices. So, the safest option for us was to leave in the middle of the night when no one was awake, as some factory workers already made connections with the Libyan mafia, who conducts the game, and one of my friends did it successfully last month. He called me back from Italy and shared the beautiful countryside of Italy and how clean it is compared to our factory. The phone call from my friend was the point when I decided to go because I could not take it anymore there,” shared a 35-year-old Bangladeshi migrant currently working in an Italian mini market. The others had their own stories in Libya following the Arab Spring. The key similarities were the inability to send remittances as the banks stopped working following the clashes and the story of a friend who just crossed the sea successfully and called from Italy.
Insights from an official who works for the welfare of the migrants
The Bangladeshi official working in the Bangladesh Embassy in Rome shared important information about the migratory pattern in Bangladesh, predominantly from the three districts of Munshiganj, Shariatpur, and Madaripur. He said that people from these three districts had the first migration network in Italy. The story of success quietly traveled back in since these people had houses, cars, and other fortunes. Soon, the story of success became a dream for the young people living in these areas, as rising unemployment and political instability in Bangladesh meant the chance of success was very low. He further added, Bangladesh is a country full of rivers, and the people who live beside the river have a greater tendency to migrate as rivers in Bangladesh often cause land erosion. These three areas are on the banks of Padma, one of the biggest rivers in the country that often causes erosion and forces people to relocate to other parts of the country or the world.
The official shared another important fact: the legal migration to Italy is in the hands of private individuals who are company owners, so the government in both Italy and Bangladesh has very little to do with it. These individuals make the system of issuing work permits very complicated, often involving paying a large sum of money, making the legal migration very difficult. Furthermore, the situation following the Arab Spring made Europe the hotspot for migration from North Africa to the European coastal countries, most importantly Spain, Italy, and Greece. The people who crossed following the Arab Spring from the three districts situated on the bank of the Padma River chose Italy, as the migration network was already very strong.
Suggestions and conclusions by the migrants and the official
When the four migrants were asked to say something about the people who are trying or will try to cross the Mediterranean in the future, four of them forbade it unanimously. Most insightful was the first interviewee, who said, “It is a death game where the risk is disproportionate to the outcome since in Bangladesh we have a family. Apart from that, crossing the Mediterranean does not solve the problem. After this comes a long period of European bureaucracy, and according to my experience, I solved my basic problems in 2019—6 years after my arrival in Sicily.” The other migrants shared similar experiences; it had taken years for them to obtain suitable housing and a decent job. They underwent a long period of exploitation and fear as they were undocumented in their first few years after arrival. The embassy official’s suggestion was the channels open for legal and skilled migration. He also emphasized the importance of hard work and skill development rather than choosing the shortcut option of finding smugglers, paying them a large sum, and then leaving. Focusing on skilled and legal migration will be a life-changing decision rather than crossing a very long sea by leaving everything in the hands of fate, as life comes first before anything.
Bibliography
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