Trapped in Ship Container
<i>Alamin buried in distant land without tears</i>
None was there to shed a tear when Alamin Ujha, one of the two Bangladeshi men who died while accidentally being shipped to Singapore on a container from Chittagong Port a month ago, was buried in a foreign land.
Instead of family members, some Bangladeshi officials and kind Singaporeans attended the sad funeral at Choa Chu Kang Muslim Cemetery in Singapore on Thursday. Even Din Islam, who was trapped with Alamin, could not see the burial.
Bangladesh authorities took no responsibility to repatriate Alamin's corpse while his family was too poor to pay for his repatriation.
"The government said we have to pay to repatriate our brother from Singapore. But we are very poor. We could not bring our brother," Alamgir, Alamin's brother and a rickshaw-puller, told The Daily Star from Chittagong yesterday.
"My elderly mother cries like a madwoman, as she could not see her son's body," Alamgir said, adding that they had no way other than agreeing to the government proposal of a burial in Singapore.
He said a Bangladeshi journalist in Singapore assured to provide a photo of Alamin. "That is what we can keep to remember him," he said.
A Bangladeshi journalist AKM Mohsin based in Singapore, who followed the incidents, said, "How funny! How could a poor family bear the cost?"
Bangladesh High Commission told Singapore media that Alamin's corpse could not be sent home, as it had decomposed, he said, adding, "Everyone in Singapore is laughing about it."
Many Bangladeshis wanted to pay the repatriation cost of Alamin's body, but the high commission never asked for any help, he said.
Alamin, 37, and his colleague Din, two port cleaners, had smoked marijuana in the empty container before being locked in. They shouted and banged on the walls of the container to attract attention before it was hoisted onto the ship Hansa Caledo. But no help came.
Alamin died two days after the ship set sail on April 2. Din survived nine days trapped without food or water. Port workers in Singapore discovered Alamin's rotting corpse and Din in critical condition on April 10.
The body was taken to Singapore General Hospital while, after treatment, Transient Workers Count Too, a charity for migrants in Singapore, took care of Din.
Din at that time had mistakenly named Alamin as Alamgir to The Daily Star.
By this time, Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore had written to the foreign ministry in Dhaka.
An official at the expatriates' welfare ministry said the ministry considered it was not its responsibility to repatriate the dead body as the two did not go to Singapore to work.
He said the men were port workers and so the shipping ministry was responsibility for their repatriation, which unfortunately did not happen.
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