Amin thinks it took about a month for them to reach Malaysian waters.
It was the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and Malaysia had closed and sealed its borders, but people smugglers hoped the virus would die down quickly and border controls would relax, Amin said.
They waited. Floating aimlessly in the water as the weeks passed, the food became an increasing source of torment for the refugees on board.
To begin with, they ate stale rice and dumplings which they washed down with instant coffee made with bottled water, and the smugglers also brought bags of onions which they sometimes ate. But no one planned for weeks of delay. Rations decreased. “After two months, it was very difficult,” Amin said.
The refugees had set up a tarpaulin to protect them from the sun and, when it rained, they tried to collect the water that accumulated there, channeling it into empty bottles. But it was never enough.
“Towards the end, the people smugglers gave us a handful of rice a day and half a glass of water. We were very hungry and thirsty all the time,” Amin said.
Conditions were so harsh that Amin estimates that “perhaps around 100 people” died.
He told Al Jazeera that an old man he saw begging smugglers for water died two hours after his request was denied. A boy, perhaps two or three years old, died in the same way, Amin said, after asking for water for several hours.
The bodies of the dead were dropped; undressed before entering the sea. Like food and water, clothes were considered a precious commodity – refugees had only been allowed to bring what they were wearing.
“We were crying a lot on that ship,” Amin said. “We were like skeletons.”
Amin said there were perhaps six or seven smugglers on board and they were armed with sticks and guns. “The sailors were unfaithful [non-Muslims]”, said Amin. “Some came from Myanmar and others from Bangladesh, but they told us they had been at sea for many years doing this work. [people smuggling]. Their journey smuggling people lasted a long time, they said.”
We were crying so much on that ship
According to Amin and Mohammed Ullah, another young Rohingya he met during the trip, the smugglers used their weapons to intimidate the refugees into begging for more money from their families in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“Sometimes they beat us and told us to call our parents to transfer more money to them. We paid 5,000 Malaysian ringgit [$1,211] and after a few months at sea on the big boat, the smugglers asked for another 5,000 Malaysian ringgit,” Amin said.
In early June 2020, smugglers decided to make another attempt to reach Malaysia, hoping that pandemic restrictions had been lifted.
But the situation got worse.
“There were Malaysian helicopters flying overhead,” Amin recalled. “The smugglers said, ‘We’re not going to take you to Malaysia. Go now, we don’t care.’”
Amin says that it was at that point that the smugglers decided to split the group, betting that a smaller number of people would have a better chance of reaching land.
The refugees were placed on four boats, each with a smuggler. Two sailed towards the tourist island of Langkawi, Malaysia, and two towards the coast of Aceh, Indonesia – one of them was a larger and slower ship, and the others were smaller and faster.
On June 8, the Malaysian coast guard announced that it had detained 269 refugees off the coast of Langkawi after their boat’s engine failed. Fifty Rohingya, desperate to reach dry land, jumped into the water and swam to shore.
Four days later, Amin and Ullah’s boat was pushed back by the Malaysian coast guard.
The two men say they then found themselves adrift in the waters between Malaysia and Indonesia when their meager food and water supplies finally ran out. They did not know that one of the other boats, carrying almost 100 refugees, had arrived in the Indonesian province of Aceh on 24 June. Having been at sea for so long, some could barely walk. Everyone was desperately hungry and thirsty. Even now, no one knows what happened to the fourth boat.
Al Jazeera was unable to locate the smugglers to speak to them about Amin and Ullah’s experience at sea. The two refugees’ accounts echo the experiences of others who made the journey.
It was only in September that Amin’s boat was finally spotted by local fishermen – not far from the coastal town of Lhokseumawe.
Indonesian authorities allowed them to disembark and even provided some assistance to the Rohingya.
They were taken to a complex of basic concrete buildings, with communal showers and toilets and the appearance of an army barracks, just a 10-minute drive from the coast.
It wasn’t anything luxurious, but it was solid, safe land.
“I was extremely happy to have landed in Aceh,” Amin recalled of his arrival. “Just like the others who were in the same boat.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
