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 yesterday 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.
Also Read
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.
Some of the grimmest tales so far have emerged from Absaruddin's boat.
After weeks at sea, it was abandoned last week by its crew and then pushed between Malaysia and Indonesia, whose navies were unwilling to let it enter, a stark illustration of what Human Rights Watch has called deadly "human ping pong".
As supplies ran low, fierce fighting broke out between the Bangladeshis and Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, with many being thrown overboard or choosing to jump. The vessel was sinking by the time fishermen spotted it and came to its aid.
Several survivors have referred to many people having drowned and been killed in the violence on board. The Rohingya and Bangladeshis, who are being housed in separate buildings in Langsa, both claim the other side started the fighting.
Absaruddin said among those believed killed were two of his relatives, his young uncle Mainuddin and another relative, Nobi Hossain, who were also kidnapped.
After a starving Mainuddin, 16, begged for more food, the crew instead started beating him, and then started on Hossain, 18, when he tried to intervene. They then threw them into the sea.
