The promise of a better life in Europe often lures thousands from Bangladesh into a treacherous journey, fraught with unimaginable dangers. This isn’t just a migration story; it’s a saga of desperation, exploitation, and often, tragedy. For many, the dream of Italy turns into a nightmare, particularly along the notorious route through Libya.
The Desperate Hope: Why Bangladeshis Seek Europe
Imagine a young man, full of dreams, whose legs are severely burned on an overcrowded boat, leaving him unconscious as the vessel begins to sink. This was Yasin Hawlader’s reality, a stark introduction to the perils faced by countless Bangladeshi migrants. His story, and many others, highlight the immense human cost behind the statistics of irregular migration.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest sources of migrants, with an average of 400,000 citizens seeking opportunities abroad annually. While the Middle East and Southeast Asia are common destinations for temporary work, Europe, especially Italy, has become a preferred choice for long-term settlement. As of January 1, 2023, over 162,000 Bangladeshis legally resided in Italy, making it the second most popular European destination after the UK. Rome alone hosts nearly a quarter of all Bangladeshis in Italy.
So, what drives this exodus? Push Factors from Bangladesh:
- Lack of Opportunity: A severe shortage of stable jobs and poor economic conditions at home push many young Bangladeshis into despair.
- Political Uncertainty: Instability further fuels the desire to leave.
- Fraudulent Legal Channels: Many attempts to migrate legally are thwarted by unscrupulous agents, making individuals even more desperate and pushing them towards illegal routes.
- Family Strategy: Migration is often seen as a family investment, with relatives willing to spend significant sums (often 12,000-14,000 euros) for a chance at a better life, hoping for quick returns. This creates a powerful “culture of migration” where observed success stories inspire others.
Pull Factors towards Italy:
- Promise of Opportunity: Italy is widely perceived as a land of better employment, higher income, and an improved standard of living.
- Inclusive Labor Market: Historically, Italy’s flexible immigration policies and periodic regularization systems (like the “Flow Decrees” of the 1990s) made it attractive, unlike more restrictive European nations.
- Transnational Networks: Social networks of family and friends already in Italy paint an idealized picture, reassuring aspiring migrants that earning money, even without documentation, is feasible.
- “Migration Idealism Paradox”: Despite knowing the brutal conditions in Libya, the perceived benefits of reaching Italy are so compelling that they overshadow the severe risks. The “dream” becomes a desperate gamble.
- Italy’s Ambivalent Policy: While official policies have become stricter since the 2000s, a “relative tolerance toward undocumented migrants” persists, especially in regions with large informal economies like Rome and the South. This creates a dangerous perception that legal status is still attainable upon arrival, a promise often reinforced by brokers.
This combination of factors has led to a dangerous surge. In the first two months of 2025, 2,589 Bangladeshis landed on Italian shores by sea, doubling the number from the previous year and making Bangladesh the top nationality arriving via this route. Notably, all these recent arrivals reportedly embarked from Libya.
The Labyrinthine Paths: Routes, Costs, and Trafficking Networks
The journey from Bangladesh to Italy is not a direct one. It’s a complex, multi-stage odyssey orchestrated by intricate, often clandestine, networks. The financial burden is immense, fueling a predatory industry.
The Central Mediterranean Route (CMR) remains the primary and most perilous pathway for irregular Bangladeshi migrants aiming for Italy. Libya serves as a critical gateway for human smuggling networks across North Africa. In 2022, over 15,000 Bangladeshis arrived in Italy via the CMR, making them the third most-represented nationality. Despite a general shift in 2023 where Tunisia became the main departure point for the overall CMR, recent data from early 2025 shows that all Bangladeshi sea arrivals to Italy still originated from Libya. This highlights the deeply entrenched and specialized nature of Bangladeshi migration networks operating out of Libya.
The journey to Libya itself involves multiple transit countries and modes of transportation:
- Transit Countries: In 2022, over a third of Bangladeshi migrants in Libya (36%) traveled via Türkiye, another 38% via the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and 13% via Egypt.
- Modes of Transport: Commercial flights are the primary mode, accounting for over 74% of travel from these transit countries to Libya.
Once in Libya, the perilous sea crossing to Italy is arranged by sophisticated transnational trafficking networks. These networks exploit the desperation of young Bangladeshis, luring them with “dream jobs” through social media. The irregular migration industry has boomed since the 1990s, ironically fueled by increased EU border controls. The collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya created a security vacuum, allowing these smuggling networks to expand rapidly, generating an estimated $978 million in revenues in 2016.
The financial cost of this journey is staggering, often plunging families into deep debt:
- Bangladesh to Libya: Costs range from USD 450 to USD 4,889.
- Libya to Italy (Sea Crossing): Typically costs between USD 3,000 and USD 4,000 per person.
- Total Cost: The overall average cost to reach Italy from Bangladesh often exceeds USD 8,000. In Bangladeshi Taka, this can be Tk 5 lakh to Tk 8 lakh. However, real stories reveal even higher sums, with some paying Tk 14 lakh to Tk 16 lakh for the Mediterranean crossing alone.
- Funding: Migrants typically fund these exorbitant costs through loans, the sale of family land, or financial support from relatives abroad. This reliance on debt often leads to debt bondage, making migrants incredibly vulnerable to further exploitation. For instance, Alamin Molla’s family paid Tk 34 lakh for his “freedom” after he was sold to mafia agents in Libya. Yasin and Roman Hawlader spent over Tk 25 lakh before even boarding the boat.
This initial, crippling investment traps individuals in a predatory system, where the “dream of Europe” is cynically leveraged by traffickers to justify ongoing exploitation through violence and coercion.
Libya’s Hell: Exploitation and Abuse in Transit
Libya, a critical transit hub, has become synonymous with unimaginable suffering for irregular migrants, including Bangladeshis, trapped within its borders.
Following the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, Libya’s pervasive security vacuum allowed for the rapid expansion of migrant smuggling networks. This unstable environment has transformed Libya into a place where migrants are often trapped for months or even years in what survivors describe as “inhumane,” “hellholes,” and “torture chambers”. These range from official detention centers to clandestine smuggling dens.
Conditions within these facilities are appalling, systematically depriving detainees of basic human rights. Documented abuses include severe overcrowding, a dire lack of food, water, and sanitation, forced labor, sexual assault, rape, and unlawful killings. Armed groups, militias, and criminal networks operate these facilities with alarming impunity due to Libya’s weak legal framework.
Disturbingly, credible reports indicate collusion between these criminal networks and even government officials, including elements of the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) and the Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM). These officials allegedly intercept migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean and then transfer them to detention centers, where they are held for ransom. Detained migrants, including unaccompanied children, are routinely forced to work. There are also reports of DCIM guards systematically subjecting migrants to sex trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation. UNHCR has unequivocally stated that Libya is not a safe place for disembarkation.
Traffickers employ a range of brutal methods to control and exploit migrants:
- Physical Violence: Beatings, kicking, and the use of weapons are rampant.
- Debt Bondage: Migrants are forced to work off exorbitant journey costs, making them highly vulnerable.
- Extortion: Families back home are frequently forced to pay massive ransoms—sometimes up to Tk 30 lakh (approximately 300,000 BDT) or USD 4,000—for their loved ones’ release.
- Psychological Coercion: Threats against family members and even the use of voodoo oaths are employed to instill fear.
- Deception: Migrants are initially lured with false promises of lucrative jobs that quickly devolve into exploitation.
- Unsafe Work: They endure unsafe, harsh working conditions, long shifts, and often receive very low or no pay. Passports are often confiscated to prevent escape.
Real Stories of Libya’s Hell:
- Yasin Hawlader & Roman Hawlader: After their sea rescue, they and 25 other Bangladeshis were abandoned by Tunisian police in the desert near the Algerian border. Algerian police found them; Yasin was hospitalized, but then he and Jahid Fakir were jailed for over five months. Their agent, Khaleda, was accused of selling them to mafia, leading to over Tk 25 lakh in payments before they even boarded the boat.
- Alamin Molla: On the same boat as Yasin, Alamin was brutally tortured and extorted in Libya. His family paid Tk 34 lakh for his “freedom” after the initial agent sold him to the mafia. He was taken to Algeria, but there has been no trace of him since early September.
- Malik (arrived Benghazi, May 2023): Expecting a 10-day stay, Malik endured over eight months in “torture chambers” across Tobruk, Derna, Benghazi, and Gazala. He was sold and moved between militias at least five times, describing daily beatings and humiliating searches. In Tripoli, he was forced into 17 days of labor to work off a $1,000 debt, witnessing a guard shoot a young man in the foot for asking to use the bathroom.
- Jamal (from Damascus, similar experiences to Bangladeshis): Jamal attempted the Mediterranean crossing three times. Twice, he was intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard, who he described as brutal, detaching boat engines, burning boats, and beating and robbing migrants. He was detained in Bir el-Ghanam, notorious for “humiliation, violence, and torture.” He recalled being crammed into a dirty Derna hangar with 400 others, including Bangladeshis, where daily beatings were common. Many suffered from severe scabies and extreme hunger. Jamal witnessed an elderly Syrian man lose an eye after being beaten during a riot. He borrowed $3,000 to secure his release from captors demanding $4,000.
- Anwar Mohammad (from southern Bangladesh): Lured by a broker with promises of masonry work for USD 500 a month, Anwar’s family sold land and animals. Upon arrival, he was forced to sign a contract for only USD 250 a month, with USD 100 deducted. He endured verbal abuse, long shifts in a brick-making factory, and repeated arrests. He returned home “heartbroken,” unsure how to restart his life, and mentioned other migrants committing suicide during repatriation.
- Ali (15 years old in 2016): Ali’s journey to Libya ended with immediate detention at Benghazi airport. He was held for ransom, and his parents sold their last two cows to free him. He shared a small, mattress-less room with 15 other Bangladeshis and witnessed severe beatings. He was forced to work unpaid in a tile factory under lock and key, beaten for stopping work, and saw another migrant break his leg attempting to escape.
These accounts reveal a deeply entrenched and systemic issue where state and quasi-state actors in Libya are not only complicit but actively profit from the dehumanization of migrants. EU efforts to address irregular migration, by funding the Libyan Coast Guard, may inadvertently empower the very perpetrators of human rights abuses. The pervasive lack of judicial accountability in Libya further entrenches this impunity.
The Mediterranean’s Deadly Embrace: Sea Crossings
The final, most dangerous leg of the journey is the treacherous sea crossing across the Mediterranean, a route that has become a graveyard for thousands seeking a new life.
The Central Mediterranean route has consistently earned a grim reputation as the deadliest migration route in the world. The sea journey from Libya (or Tunisia) to Italy is fraught with extreme dangers, including grossly overcrowded boats, frequent engine failures, and a severe lack of basic life-saving equipment, all of which routinely lead to mass drownings. Despite the widely known risks, migrants continue to undertake these journeys, driven by overwhelming desperation and the absence of safe, legal alternatives. As one expert grimly put it, for many, “This is not a dream journey; it’s a death journey”.
The numbers underscore the scale of this humanitarian crisis:
- In 2023, over 280,000 people departed from North Africa on dangerous sea journeys to Europe, a 58% increase from 2022.
- Tragically, 3,311 people were reported dead or missing at sea in 2023, up from 2,674 in 2022. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated nearly 2,500 deaths or disappearances on the Central Mediterranean route alone in 2023.
- The human toll continues into 2025, with IOM estimating 248 deaths at sea in January and February, following 2,300 fatalities in all of 2024.
- Since 2014, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded over 72,000 fatalities on migratory routes worldwide, with the vast majority occurring in the Mediterranean Sea. 2024 was the deadliest year on record for migrant deaths and disappearances globally, exceeding 8,700, with the Central Mediterranean route alone accounting for over 1,700 lives lost.
These statistics translate into countless individual tragedies:
- In January 2025, at least 23 Bangladeshi migrants died after a boat carrying 56 people bound for Italy departed from Libya on January 25. Their bodies began washing ashore in northern Libya from January 28 onwards.
- The harrowing experience of Yasin Hawlader and Roman Hawlader, detailed earlier, vividly illustrates the immediate dangers: their boat, carrying over 100 migrants, began sinking, and their desperate pleas to coast guards were ignored before a Tunisian gas exploration ship rescued them.
- Ali, a Bangladeshi migrant who made the crossing at just 15 years old, recounted a terrifying ordeal in July (around 2019/2020) on an overcrowded dinghy with 79 others. After two days at sea, sighting sharks in the distance led him to believe, “We’re done!”.
- A former police superintendent in Madaripur, a key district for migration, tragically reported that over 100 Bangladeshis from that district alone have died attempting this perilous journey.
The escalating number of deaths can be understood as a direct, albeit unintended, consequence of the “Fortress Europe” effect. People are dying at Europe’s doorstep because there are virtually no safe ways for them to seek protection. EU policies primarily focus on “protection of external borders” rather than on developing effective strategies for human rights protection and saving lives. By prioritizing stringent border control, the EU inadvertently forces desperate migrants into more dangerous, clandestine routes, making them more dependent on exploitative smugglers and significantly increasing their vulnerability to death at sea.
Italy’s Shores: Challenges and Realities
Upon reaching Italy’s shores, irregular Bangladeshi migrants face a new set of complex challenges related to their legal status, living conditions, and the arduous path towards integration.
Italy’s migration reception framework is structured around three main systems: Programma Nazionale Asilo (PNA), Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Rifugiati (SPRAR), and Centri Accoglienza Straordinaria (CAS). While SPRAR aims for comprehensive integration, it struggles with sustainability. The CAS system, introduced as a temporary “emergency” response, operates under less stringent legal standards, leading to significant issues. In December 2017, an estimated 80.9% of asylum-seekers in Italy were housed in CAS facilities, often subjected to “unacceptable health and safety standards,” with reports of “dirty, shared toilets” and overcrowded rooms lacking ventilation. The ‘hotspot’ system, implemented since April 2015, aims for quick processing, but migrants often remain in these facilities under inhumane conditions for weeks due to lack of national implementation.
The bureaucratic hurdles are significant: in 2022, out of 84,289 asylum applications, 56% were denied, and only 13% were granted refugee status. This lack of recognized legal status is a primary driver of exploitation, particularly concerning housing. Even for those who initially enter legally, challenges persist: from 2020 to 2023, approximately 80% of Bangladeshi workers who arrived with work visas eventually became undocumented due to visa complications and a lack of language or technical skills. In 2023 alone, around 100,000 workers faced visa complications.
Irregular migrants in Italy face immense difficulties in securing legal residence and work authorization, leaving them highly vulnerable to exploitation. Many are forced into the agricultural sector, where the illegal caporalato practice—involving exploitative recruiters and employers—is prevalent, particularly in Southern Italy. Workers under this system typically earn daily wages that are about 50% lower than standard contracts. They are often compelled to rely on and pay recruiters for basic necessities like food, housing, and transportation, which are frequently expensive and inadequate, leading some critics to describe these conditions as “modern-day slavery”. In 2021, an estimated 230,000 workers were illegally employed in Italy’s agricultural sector.
Beyond agriculture, in Rome and the South, the informal economy thrives, often with little respect for workers’ rights. Bangladeshi migrants commonly find manual occupations in the tertiary sector (e.g., dishwashers, cooks, cleaners) or agricultural labor under “premodern working conditions”. Low unionization rates mean even those with regular jobs often receive short-term contracts, risking loss of residence permits if unemployed, pushing them into undeclared work. Housing is also a significant challenge, marked by extensive use of informal channels and limited access to social housing.
Undocumented migrants in Italy face significant barriers to accessing national healthcare and are largely excluded from the formal welfare system. While urgent healthcare is legally provided to everyone, regardless of documentation status, accessing comprehensive services requires registration with the public healthcare system (SSN). Undocumented migrant women, in particular, face compounded vulnerabilities due to gender inequality, discrimination, low socioeconomic status, precarious housing and working conditions, and language/cultural/administrative barriers. Despite these systemic obstacles, NGOs like MEDU, Intersos, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provide crucial healthcare services, including mental health support.
The European Union’s Dublin Regulation significantly impacts irregular migrants in Italy. This regulation mandates that the first EU Member State an asylum seeker enters is responsible for processing their protection claim. This often traps migrants in Italy, preventing them from moving further north into the free-movement Schengen Area, even if they initially intended to transit through the country. This creates a legal paradox: migrants are stuck in Italy by EU law, yet Italy’s lengthy asylum process and limited access to services like housing and healthcare make them vulnerable to exploitative working environments.
Addressing the Crisis: Efforts and Challenges
The complex and multifaceted nature of irregular migration from Bangladesh to Italy necessitates a coordinated response, involving both international and bilateral efforts, alongside the crucial work of non-governmental organizations.
On May 6, 2025, Bangladesh and Italy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Migration and Mobility in Dhaka. This landmark agreement aims to curb illegal migration through human trafficking, enhance legal migration opportunities, and strengthen cooperation in managing migration, including the repatriation of irregular migrants. Key outcomes expected include Italy taking both seasonal and non-seasonal workers from Bangladesh, with discussions to increase existing quotas. The agreement also emphasizes joint procedures and the formation of a joint working group for safe migration. For Bangladesh, the MoU reflects a commitment to expanding overseas labor markets and securing remittance inflows. For Italy, it offers a solution to labor shortages while promoting safe, orderly, and regular migration. Both sides also agreed to strengthen cooperation on the repatriation of those arriving illegally and to establish a joint committee to combat transnational organized crime.
Despite these efforts, significant challenges persist in making legal migration effective and curbing irregular flows:
- Visa Bottlenecks: A major issue is the lengthy visa processing time at the Italian embassy in Dhaka, sometimes exceeding a year, leading to passports being withheld for extended periods and some even returned without visas. In 2023 alone, around 100,000 Bangladeshi workers faced visa complications. This delay in legal migration processes inadvertently encourages individuals to seek illegal routes.
- Undocumented Status: A concerning trend indicates that from 2020 to 2023, approximately 80% of workers who entered Italy with work visas eventually became undocumented, largely due to a lack of language skills and technical knowledge, as well as allegations of fake job offers.
- Repatriation Challenges: The EU-Bangladesh Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the Identification and Return of Persons without an Authorization to Stay, established in 2017, have also faced significant challenges. Two-thirds of EU Member States interacting with Bangladesh on readmission reported practices deviating from the SOPs, hampering all phases of the return process. Delays in identification processes and the issuance of travel documents are common, with some Member States assessing cooperation as “poor or very poor”.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a vital role in providing humanitarian assistance, protection, and integration support to irregular migrants in Italy. Organizations like INTERSOS have been active since 2011, offering protection, psychosocial and healthcare, and social and economic inclusion projects for vulnerable populations, including unaccompanied foreign minors and survivors of gender-based violence and labor exploitation. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) also provides essential safety, empowerment, education, livelihood, and health services to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers across Italy, with a strong focus on vulnerable groups like women and children. They establish Women and Girls Safe Spaces, offer psychological and case management services, and work on economic empowerment. Other organizations, such as the Centre for Women and Children Studies in Bangladesh, provide direct services including rescue, repatriation, healthcare, psychosocial counseling, shelter, and legal aid for trafficking victims. Despite their crucial work, NGOs face challenges, including corruption within the reception system where funds intended for migrants are siphoned away, leading to substandard conditions and a lack of essential services.
Conclusion: A Call for Action
The journey of irregular immigration from Bangladesh to Italy via Libya is a deeply tragic and complex humanitarian crisis. The “dream of Europe” often leads to profound suffering, exploitation, and death, driven by a desperate pursuit of economic opportunity and exacerbated by a predatory human smuggling and trafficking industry.
Addressing this crisis requires a multi-pronged approach that extends beyond mere border control. It necessitates:
- Strengthening Legal Pathways: Streamlining visa processes, increasing quotas for skilled workers, and providing comprehensive pre-departure training (including language and vocational skills) to ensure that legal migration is a genuinely viable and attractive alternative.
- Combating Trafficking Networks: Intensifying national and international joint operations to dismantle transnational human smuggling and trafficking networks, prosecuting perpetrators, and raising awareness in high-migration districts about the false promises and brutal realities of irregular journeys.
- Protecting Vulnerable Migrants: Ensuring humane conditions and access to legal aid, healthcare, and psychosocial support for migrants in transit countries like Libya, and advocating for accountability for abuses committed by state and non-state actors. International support for Libyan authorities must be conditional on strict adherence to human rights.
- Improving Reception and Integration in Italy: Reforming Italy’s reception systems to provide adequate housing, timely processing of asylum claims, and effective integration services, including access to formal employment and social welfare, for all migrants, regardless of their initial entry status.
- Addressing Root Causes: Investing in long-term socio-economic development in Bangladesh to create sustainable job opportunities and reduce the desperation that drives individuals to risk their lives for a perceived “better future”.
Without a comprehensive and human rights-centric approach that tackles both the push and pull factors, the exploitative networks, and the systemic vulnerabilities, the perilous passage from Bangladesh to Italy will continue to claim lives and perpetuate untold suffering.