Langsa, Indonesia - Snatched by people traffickers in his native Bangladesh and forced onto a migrant boat, 14-year-old Absaruddin endured a weeks-long nightmare in which he almost starved to death, saw his relatives killed and was forced to jump overboard after being attacked.
He lived to tell the tale after he and several hundred other Bangladeshis and Rohingya from Myanmar were plucked to safety Friday from their sinking boat and the waters by Indonesian fishermen.
"I want to go back to my home, I want to go back to my mother," he said, speaking from a building where some of the migrants were being housed in the city of Langsa, on the northeast coast of Sumatra, after recounting an ordeal that lasted almost two months.
The emaciated teenager, who comes from a poor farming family, wept as he talked on a mobile phone to his mother for the first time since he left southern Bangladesh, an AFP reporter said. His mother could be heard weeping on the other end of the line.
Those rescued from his vessel were among 900 migrants saved in one day alone in the same area, the latest harrowing episode in Southeast Asia's migrant crisis that has been precipitated by Thailand's move to crack down on busy people-smuggling and -trafficking routes.
Huge numbers of migrants have arrived in Malaysia and Indonesia in recent days, as they are abandoned, and thousands more are thought to be stranded at sea. International pressure is building for swift action, with the United States joining calls for the region to open its ports.
AFP
