The Daily Star
Opinion
Captain A F M Ahsan Uddin
November 10, 2020
"Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drink" said Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his famous poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.
Captain A F M Ahsan Uddin
As a sailor, we always feel this and thus our relation with the sea becomes inseparable in our life. Sometimes we forget the presence of air around us, though we inhale it every second, likewise, at times we tend to realise our engrossed relation with the sea. However, the same feeling suddenly popped up when we saw a forlorn mechanised boat -- at deep sea for months -- carrying a huge number of people including women and children. They even didn't have water to drink, even though they were surrounded by the sea.
There was news regarding a few hundred of Rohingya at deep sea in mechanised boats seeking refuge to Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand since April 2020. As Bangladesh Navy had been quite vigilant since long and were carrying out patrols round the clock to prevent illegal migration of Rohingya from Myanmar, we, the sailors at sea, were alert. Our mission was twofold -- first, to prevent another Rohingya influx, and second, to intercept or rescue them if they are stranded.
