He never thought that he would leave his native Bangladesh and reach Europe.
But for Siam and Mohammed, their hopes for a better life in Libya turned into a hell that they must escape at all costs, even if it meant risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
“They hit my legs and punched my body several times,” Mohammed, 25, said of the smugglers in Libya, who were on board the rescue ship Ocean Viking just hours after being rescued from Malta.
Describing in broken English to an AFP reporter how armed Libyan smugglers had terrorized him for months, Mohammed threatened his captors to “cut my nails off”.
“If I stay here I'll die,” he remembered about Libya, a country he originally thought could provide him with money to send to his family.
With jet-black hair and big, round eyes, Mohammed scans the horizon from the main deck with his tracksuit's zipper up.
“So I decided, no matter what, I have to leave this place.”
“If you can pay, you will pay and you will be free. Otherwise they will kill you,” said 20-year-old Siam.