AT the tender age of 10, Ariff witnessed atrocities that would forever haunt him.
Crammed into a boat with hundreds, the Rohingya boy, now 11, was better treated than the rest because of his age.
But his tender age meant that his memories would be the stuff of nightmares for years to come, more so than his older compatriots.
The New Straits Times spoke to four Rohingyas and Bangladeshis yesterday, asking them to recount their experiences.
All four spoke of how badly they and their fellow migrants were treated aboard the boats run by human traffickers.
All four had differing tales of atrocities they suffered for various “infractions”.
But there were similarities, too. All spoke of not being able to utter a single word out of place.
Above all, they spoke about the brutal killing of their fellow migrants, all in the same manner, as if the tekongs of the boats had come up with the method during a meeting among human traffickers.
Those who spoke out of turn would be strung up by their feet, whipped and left to starve while others witnessed the slow death.
Once death finally came, the tekong would cut the body down, but not before using the whip one last time to make sure the migrant was indeed dead.
The tekong would stab the body in the chest, then pull the knife down towards the abdomen, before the body was tossed into the sea.
Ariff remembers well the voyage he took last year. It was one he took after his father died in Rakhine, Myanmar. He and his mother were to be reunited with his grandparents in Malaysia.
In the first three days aboard the boat, all he could remember was being seasick. Until one day, three men were killed in front of him.
“After that, I did not feel like vomiting. I kept quiet, and we arrived three days later. We arrived on the shores of Thailand and were brought into the forest. My mum told me we were there for 15 days.
“They were nice to me and my mum, and other children, but not so much to the men.
“They were beaten in the boats and at the camps. If they fell while we climbed the hill in the forest to the camps, they were left behind.
“When we arrived, they fed us some rice, anchovies and pumpkin dhal.
“A few weeks later, they brought us down and drove us to Malaysia,” he said.
Ariff added he had began schooling in a Rohingya Community School here.
Rohingya refugee Kassim Ali, 45, is new in Malaysia, having arrived three months ago. He left his wife and eight children, aged 4 to 14, to escape death.
He paid the equivalent of RM3,000 to board the 15-day boat ride with 800 people through the Andaman Sea, and like Ariff, he saw men hanging by their feet.
It was a one-day climb up the hills to the death camp where he was tortured by the traffickers and their agents for two months.
“We were treated like cows. They would whip us to make us do work like collecting wood and plants for food. Some died while others continued to live with no dignity.
“These agents allowed us to talk on the phone with our loved ones, (but they would) beat us and make us cry so that our families would hear our agony,” he said, his eyes welling up.
For the two months Kassim was there, he dug graves for 20 people.
“We were caged every night. I did not know who I slept next to. We were all suffering and had no time to care for others. But when someone died, we made sure they received a proper burial.”
Kassim said he almost lost hope until one day, his family paid the agents RM8,000 for his release.
He told the NST that his wish before the trip was to bring his family along.
However, bearing in mind all he went through, he was grateful they did not have enough money at the time to join him.
Kassim collects cardboard boxes and newspaper every day, sometimes earning as much as RM35 a day, sometimes nothing at all.
“How am I supposed to take care of them if they come? I do not want them to be treated like disposable items that can be killed for no reason. I would like them to come here by plane one day, but never by boat,” he said.
Bangladeshi Muhammad Jalal Dalil, 36, left his wife and children, two girls aged 12 and 15 and a 7-year-old son, in October after being convinced by a trafficker that he had secured a job in Malaysia which paid RM3,000 (about 64,000 takka) monthly.
The Bangladeshi traffickers promised a comfortable three-day boat ride, with meals provided every hour, as he journeyed to a better life in Malaysia.
Instead, he endured seven days in a fishing boat with 700 others.
Two people on the boat created a ruckus, he said, stating that one person could not handle the living situation and tore down a ceiling fan in the lower deck.
He and the tekong started fighting, and another man joined in. They were both beaten and hung by their feet, left to die slowly.
“It was an awful sight, and you don’t think you would survive such violence.
“But the next day, we arrived in Thailand, after being ferried to land by a speedboat.
“We were taken by car to the forest before we started climbing up to the camps.
“The (agents) said we had to be fast, they will not wait for anyone.
“Some who tripped and injured themselves badly were shot in front of us and their bodies hidden in bushes, while others who were with family or friends would be carried up the hill to the campsites,” he said.
Jalal said he stayed in the camp for two days before his family managed to pay his ransom.
His wife, their parents and siblings had to pawn land and personal items to collect RM25,000 for his release.
Jalal said some, like him, were lucky their families helped, while others continued living in the camps or died from torture and starvation.
From the camp in Thailand, Jalal and those whose ransoms had been paid were taken on a 13-hour trek through the dense jungles into Malaysia and on to Penang.
“I was left by the traffickers in Penang with shabby clothes. It was an embarrassing sight, but I thanked Allah for keeping me alive. I called my friends for help but they were all in Kuala Lumpur.
“After walking around asking for help, this Bangladeshi man said he would help me go to Kuala Lumpur, so long as I paid him RM1,800.
“He bought a shirt, pants and new shoes for me, and put me in a cab to come here.
“Now, I work with one of the stalls in the neighbourhood and earn about RM800 to send back to my family,” he said.
Muhammad Farid Fadzlul Karim, 16, a Madrasah student from the Naogaon district in Bangladesh, considers himself lucky, despite being kidnapped off the streets and sold to human traffickers from Myanmar.
He and 300 others were still at sea after two months when Thai authorities discovered mass graves and campsites of victims of human trafficking and began to crack down on the syndicates.
Farid claimed that the tekong of the boat held “discussions” with Thai police over how much the latter would be paid to allow the migrants to be brought into Thailand, but the two parties could not come to an agreement.
However, he and some 120 others were transferred to a speedboat where they were told to contact their families to be “ransomed”.
Farid’s brother, Hanifah, told the NST he paid RM10,000 to a Bangladeshi agent.
Half of the money came from their father, who had to sell of his land, while the other half were Hanifah’s entire savings.
But the “agent” ran off with the money, and Hanifah was told that he would now have to pay RM12,000 instead. He had no choice but to beg for the money from friends and relatives.
That same day, Farid and others whose families managed to pay the traffickers arrived in Malaysia after the syndicate members paid off a border checkpoint officer, the teen claimed.
“It was like a can of sardines. They stuffed three men into the car boot,” he said, adding that it took them seven hours to reach Penang. From there, he took a taxi to Kuala Lumpur to meet his brother.
The migrants may have gotten to Malaysia in different ways, but their experiences were similar.
The hardships and brutality they went through have given them two other things in common — gratefulness that they survived, and the motivation to ensure they make themselves a better life.
Jalal summed it up for the entire group, saying that there were times they thought they would die, and had lost all hope of living a better life in Malaysia or any country.
“Now we are here. We have hope that we can pay off whatever debts we have and live our dreams.”