Smoke break led to horrific nine-day ordeal
A quick break to smoke a "joint" led to a horrific nine-day ordeal that ended in tragedy for at least one Bangladeshi worker.
According to The Straits Times, the two Bangladeshi men who were found inside a container at Singapore's Pasir Panjang Port Terminal on Sunday had apparently smoked marijuana.
It was the reason why they didn't realise they had been locked inside the container when it left Chittagong port in Bangladesh on April 1.
Port sweeper Din Islam, 30, survived the nine-day ordeal during which the container made its way to Singapore. His fellow worker, Alamgir, also in his 30s, died of dehydration.
Recalling the fateful incident which led to the duo being trapped inside the container, Din said he and his friend decided to enter the empty container and close the door for a smoke break.
"We hid in the container and shut the door, leaving it only about 1 cm ajar because we weren't supposed to be inside," he said.
But both of them fell asleep in a drug-fuelled daze and failed to realise in time that the container had been locked and loaded onto the ship, the Hansa Caledo for shipment. When they woke up, it was already too late and their cries for help fell on deaf ears.
They landed in Singapore five days later, and spent another four days at the Pasir Panjang terminal before being found. During that time, Alamgir died due of dehydration and Din had to bear with the sight and stench of his friend's decomposing corpse.
The ordeal was so torturous that he even asked God why he only took his friend's life and not his as well.
Din, speaking to AKM Mohsin, the editor of Singapore's only Bengali newspaper Banglar Kantha, said that they had no food or water throughout.
He also added that the container felt like a furnace in the day, and a freezer by night. Their only source of air was from the screw holes inside the container.
Mohsin told The Straits Times (ST), "They could breathe, but the air was dank and stale. After several days his friend gasped his last breath and said, 'I'm gone'."
"This is a strange and daunting world he's landed in: Singapore's container port, the Alexandra Hospital, the police looking into the charge of illegal entry... and the Bangladeshi High Commission. Now he simply wants to go home," Mohsin added.
Din, who is married and has a one-year-old son, was discharged from Alexandra Hospital on Wednesday, and taken in by a volunteer from Transient Workers Count Too, a charity that helps migrant workers.
A spokesman for the High Commission of Bangladesh also said on Wednesday that it Din would be repatriated as soon as he was allowed to leave.
In the meantime, he will remain in Singapore to assist in police investigations into Alamgir's death, and will be here until the coroner's inquiry.
