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| Nurul Amin Nobi Hussein, 25, (right) tells the moments he escaped from the transit camp at Wang Kelian, Perlis told Bernama in Alor Setar today. - Bernama photo |
ALOR SETAR - "In my mind there is only one - to die. I just wanted to die because death is easier than life," said a Rohingya migrants who escaped from the transit camp at Wang Kelian.
Speaking exclusively to Bernama today, Nurul Amin Nobi Hussein (male), 25, said during a two-month detention in the transit camp at Wang Kelian, he lost all hope of life and just think about death.
"Over the past two months in transit camps last year, I was locked up like goats and chickens in cages and surrounded by death all the time. Every day, five or six of us had died either due to illness or beaten and shot," he said.
He said the Rohingya migrants were crammed in what is described as 'coop' small houses up to 200 to 300 people, with men and women separated their house.
Between five and six guards who speak Thai, he said, guarded 24 hours a day overseeing about 1,500 inmates armed with sticks, knives, pistols and rifles.
"Prisoners are not allowed to talk. Anybody who spoke would be hit. Guards often chanting" sleep, sleep, sleep, "lead us all to sleep and do not talk to each other," he said.
Nurul Amin said, 'coop' was fenced by logs and built on soft soil and when it rains it becomes muddy, where prisoners are only given a plastic enclosure to enable them to sit down.
"Prisoners will stand up and sit down in the mud water if the transit camp was hit by torrential rain, causing many among prisoners infected with the disease so deadly.
"Many of the prisoners suffer from swollen feet Rohingya from too long sitting in the mud, leaving them unable to move and eat, and then die," he said, came from Maungdaw, Myanmar.
Nurul Amin said they were only given a little food that is typical rice anchovies and sardines to withstand hunger, caused many also among those who died of hunger.
Describing what happened in the transit camps as 'hell on earth', he said, too many horrific and deplorable events that can not be forgotten as long as he lives.
Among the events that can not be forgotten is how the guards had no mercy beating to death of children aged 12 years only because of his family in Myanmar do not have the money to pay the money for his release.
"There's also a new baby a few months old his mother died of starvation after the sick and starving the body fails to produce milk for her child.
Shortly after her death, she was also dying, "he said sadly.
In addition, said Nurul Amin, guards were also raped several women.
"We can hear the screams when the women were raped en masse by the controller concerned. What is even more unfortunate, some of the women who have been pregnant handiwork," he said.
The guards deem worse than 'animal'. He decided to escape desperate because after two months in transit camps felt more deaths due to the circumstances surrounding him and did not have any money to pay the syndicate.
According to Nurul Amin, a member of the syndicate of charge as a condition for release into Malaysia and if it fails to explain, facing longer detentions in the transit camps and eventually death.
"I can not pay them because there is no more money after selling all assets and land to Malaysia. They will beat me to death if I do not pay them," he said.
Faced with the possibility of a longer detained and beaten to death by members of the syndicate, he, along with five others daring escape at 1am after a transit camp guard was found asleep.
He had to crawl hundreds of yards in a state of darkness, before running into the woods without knowing the destination.
"Under no circumstances whatsoever, if I do not escape them (syndicate members) will shoot me dead or if it continues to remain in detention, I would be beaten to death because there is no money.
"Death is better than life," said Nurul Amin who pay RM6,500 for a boat for 22 days from Maungdaw on the border of Myanmar and Thailand.
Upon arrival at the city border, according to Nurul Amin, the Rohingya migrants will be transported by pickup trucks heading south Thailand in the course of which takes between 10 to 11 hours.
Meanwhile, a Rohingya migrants, Nurul Amin Mohamad Osman, 22, also recounts detained in a transit camps in forest areas in Padang Besar, Thailand, last year.
"It was hell. Every day about death constantly playing in my head. At that point, death is the best way to end all suffering," he said.
Just like Nurul Amin, he also witnessed the murders and deaths among prisoners in the hands of Rohingya camp guards brutally beat or shot dead by use of firearms.
But her fate better than Nurul Amin because his family can afford to pay some money to the syndicate which acts only released after a month in custody in the transit camps.
"Until now, I still can not accept how a man could be so cruel to other humans," said Mohamad Osman.
