As legal migration to Malaysia stalls, desperate Bangladeshis turn to deadly sea routes

Ten days into the journey, crammed with more than 250 people inside a fishing trawler built for 20, Rafiqul Alam (pseudonym) was told to make wudhu and ask God for forgiveness. A storm was approaching, and the men steering the boat said they might never reach land.

Infograph: TBS

"The waves were unlike anything I'd ever seen before," Alam recalled. "They were taller than two-storey buildings. I saw one coming straight at the trawler. If it had hit us head-on, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

Two weeks earlier, Alam had left his village with the promise of work in Malaysia. The legal route was shut, but he had spent years saving money from his job at a tea stall, hoping to move abroad someday.

Raised by a single parent and living hand to mouth for most of his life, the 24-year-old said he did not hesitate when a middleman offered him a route to Malaysia for Tk2 lakh — no passport, visa or official paperwork required. There was only one condition: the journey would be by sea.

Perilous waters

"They picked us up from Chattogram's Sat Rastar Mor and took us to a place by a river — I don't know which river it was," said Mahmud Riaz (pseudonym), Alam's cousin, who travelled using the same route to Malaysia.

"We were told a ship would take us. Instead, it was a fishing trawler. More than 250 people were packed inside like cattle. We didn't even have space to sit," he told TBS.

Before boarding, the passengers said traffickers confiscated the dry food many had brought along for the journey.

"We got one cup of water a day and dry instant noodles," Alam said. "Even to urinate, we had to wait an entire day. If anyone complained, they would beat us."

According to the survivors, at least five passengers were beaten to death during the journey. Several others, weakened by starvation and dehydration, died on the boat and were thrown into the sea.

"I remember a boy from Satkhira who had epilepsy," Alam recalled. "He kept having seizures during the journey. Later, they threw him into the sea while he was still alive."

After the storm, there was hardly any water left. That was when the traffickers began abandoning people at sea one by one to conserve water.

"They sometimes fired bullets — probably to scare us, or to scare off other gangs at sea," said Alam.

Survivors described a sprawling network involving Bangladeshi brokers, Rohingya intermediaries, and handlers they believed were Burmese operating along parts of the Thailand-Malaysia corridor.

Into the jungle

After 17 days at sea, the migrants reached the Thai coast. From there, traffickers transferred them onto smaller speedboats and moved them deep into the surrounding hill forests near the border, according to survivors.

By then, the journey had already claimed several lives.

In the forests, the migrants discovered they were not alone.

"When we got there, I saw hundreds of people," said Mohammad Aziz (pseudonym), another survivor who later returned to Bangladesh. "That's when I realised what kind of place we had come to."

According to Aziz, hundreds of Bangladeshis were being held in makeshift jungle camps while traffickers demanded additional payments from their families back home. Those whose payments had not arrived were often forced to work inside the camps.

The men overseeing the camps, Aziz said, appeared to be part of a larger cross-border network involving actors from multiple countries along the Thailand-Malaysia route.

"They would choose people from among us and make them responsible for controlling others," Aziz said. "If someone's family could not send money, they were made to work there."

The migrants then began walking through the jungle toward the Malaysian border. But during the journey, Thai authorities raided one of the camps.

"People started running in every direction," Aziz recalled. "One moment there were hundreds of people there. Next, nobody was left."

"I remember a boy from Satkhira who had epilepsy. He kept having seizures during the journey. Later, they threw him into the sea while he was still alive."

Rafiqul Alam, migrant

Aziz escaped into the forest with a small group of Bangladeshis. In the chaos, he lost contact with Alam and several others from their village.

Alam and Riaz were later caught by people living inside the forest before traffickers brought them back and resumed the journey toward Malaysia.

"Once we reached Thailand, they stopped providing us with food. We were told to eat whatever we found in the jungle," said Alam. "We did not understand their language, nor did they understand ours. They communicated with us through intermediaries — the stranded people they put to work."

There, Alam and the others survived on wild fruits they found in the jungle, eating them raw.

To cross the border, the migrants said they were taken through a narrow underground tunnel used by traffickers to move people into Malaysia.

"We had to walk bent over the entire time," Aziz said. "There was a strong smell of bats inside. We could barely breathe."

The Malaysian dream 

Back in their villages, Malaysia has long carried the promise of escape.

The men who returned from abroad built concrete houses, bought land and became figures of status in their communities. For young men like Alam, migration did not feel like a gamble so much as the only visible route out of poverty.

"If someone came back from abroad, people respected him," said Mohammad Aziz. "Everybody wanted that life."

The traffickers understood that aspiration well.

By the time the migrants finally crossed into Malaysia after weeks at sea and through the Thai jungles, most had already exhausted their families' savings. Many arrived without passports, permits or any legal identity — conditions that made them easy to exploit.

According to the survivors, employers often withheld wages or paid them far below what had been promised, knowing undocumented workers had little ability to seek legal protection.

"What could we do?" Aziz said. "We had no papers. They paid us around 800 ringgit a month. I used to earn nearly Tk30,000 in Bangladesh. Why struggle so far away from home for less money than I could earn while staying with my family?"

Aziz returned to Bangladesh within a year.

Before he could legalise his status, he said Malaysian authorities detained him during a raid. He was later issued a temporary travel pass and deported.

Now back in Jashore, Aziz drives a local transport vehicle for a living.

"I'm happier now than when I was there," he said. "I earn enough to survive. But at least I'm with my family. Alhamdulillah."

The others did not return.

Alam eventually managed to legalise his status and still works in Malaysia nearly a decade later. He said he has since saved enough money to buy a small plot of land in Jashore.

Mahmud Riaz, however, remains undocumented.

According to him, he still works alongside Rohingya refugees and other undocumented migrants, moving between temporary jobs while avoiding immigration crackdowns. Nearly nine years after leaving Bangladesh, he says he hopes to return home this year.

Jalal Ahmed, a Dhaka-based migration agent who works with Malaysian visas, said irregular migration routes tend to become active whenever formal labour migration stalls.

He said the legal process for going to Malaysia was effectively closed both in 2017 — when the three men left Bangladesh — and again in 2024.

"No one chooses these routes to save money," Ahmed said. "They do it when there is no legal way left."