We were losing a man every minute .. A survivor tells the details of the tragedy of the Mediterranean disaster off Tunisia

"They fell one by one and collapsed under water one by one." This is what the Bangladeshi agricultural worker Ahmed Bilal, who survived the disaster of the sinking of an immigrant boat between Libya and Italy, echoed without interruption. More than 60 people were killed.

Ahmed, 30, was exhausted after six months of travel. After spending three months in detention in Libya and eight hours in the cold Mediterranean waters, a Tunisian fishing boat sank Friday more than 60 kilometers off the coast of Sfax. Kilometers south of the capital).

While Ahmed survived, his cousin and his son-in-law (22 and 26) were not able to help.

"I can not hold my tears," said Ahmed, who was escorted with the 16 survivors, in an emergency residence of the Tunisian Red Crescent in the city of Zarzis (south of Tunis).

Journey towards the unknown
Ahmed and four other men, six months ago, left his village in Silhat, northeast Bangladesh, a father of two, and were involved in the death journey after a mediator in Bangladesh promised an easier life and reached Europe for about $ 7,000.

Hardly, the man was able to collect the money after his family sold the land from which they used to make rice once a year. "They were hoping to become like other families with relatives in Europe."

"The people there call it Godlak," he said bitterly. "The mediator has confirmed that we will have a better life and believe it, but in fact now we are certain that most people who send them die on the way."

"I do not know him (the mediator) except by telephone, but I saw his brother in Libya," he said.

Ahmed and his companions boarded the plane from Dhaka to Dubai, then Istanbul and then Tripoli, and found themselves with a group of 80 Bengalians, held for three months in a room in the Libyan west.

"I thought I would die in Libya, where we would get food once a day and sometimes even less, there was one toilet for everyone, we could not wash, we just cleaned our teeth, we cried and demanded food all the time," he said.

We swam all night
On Thursday night, smugglers took the group by boat to a rubber boat in which migrants packed into Italy. The boat was carrying between 75 and 80 migrants, according to Ahmed, possibly ninety, according to an Egyptian survivor.

Most of the boat's passengers are from Bangladesh with some Egyptians, Moroccans and Chadians, and there are others who are no longer Ahmad mentioning anything about them.

"The boat began to drown almost immediately around midnight (..) and we swam all night," recalls Egyptian survivor Mansour Mohamed Metwally, 21.

"They died one by one, and every minute we lose one," Ahmed said. "I saw my relatives die before my eyes."

"I myself was about to collapse, but God sent fishermen to save us, and if they arrived ten minutes later, I would have collapsed" like the rest of the shipwrecked.

A Tunisian fishing boat arrived at around 8 am and rescued 16 migrants, 14 Bengali, an Egyptian and a Moroccan.

"If the Tunisian fishermen did not see them, we would not have been aware of the drowning," said Mounji Salim, head of the Red Crescent in the southern state of Medenine.

The disaster occurred at a time when the European operation ships had withdrawn from Eastern Mediterranean smugglers, and at a time when humanitarian vessels were finding it difficult to reach the area.

Ambiguity of destination
Survivors have 60 days to decide if they wish to return home, apply for asylum through UNHCR, or stay in their own hands in Tunisia. Tunisia, which suffers from major economic and social difficulties, problems in health and education services and high unemployment, does not have a law on asylum.

"We lost a lot. I do not have anything anymore," Ahmed said. "We still hope to get to Europe to earn enough money and go home, but I will not ride the sea anymore."