He is a miracle boy
From Potuakhali: Villagers call him “miracle boy”. His name is Obaidul (7). His job was to cut fish and make packets with his mother. During the time of “Cyclone Sidr” hited in Bangladesh he was in an island named Kolagacia (situated in southern Bangladesh). The tidal waves of cyclone drifted him about 20 kilometers. His mother Halima begum (30) saved him during the time of drifting and died immediately after putting him in a safe place.
Obaidul said to me that, at the night of November 15, a sudden high wave came to our island and drifted me away. Luckily my mother grasped my right hand. It was a dark night with roaring wind. Water was so cold. Only once, I saw a black sphere in my mother’s left hand. By this we have drifted nearly 20 kilometers.
Obaidul continued, within few hours of our drifting, we reached another island named Chor Montaz. Than my mother told me that “Go to dry land, I am leaving”. This was her last speech. That time I was very upset and afraid. So I just followed my mother’s command and moved inside a boat which was placed in a dry land.
Obaidul added, I stayed few moment inside that boat. Than islanders rescued me and took me to the hospital. After that I heard, “one women’s dead body were found on the beach”. And she was my Mother. The distance between my landing point and her dead body is about 50 meters.
After taking a deep breath Obaidul told me that, my mother was a hardworking woman. Once she did day labor job to arrange food for us.”
Now Obaidul is staying in his aunt’s home in Gabua village under Golachipa. His younger sister also died by this cyclone. He has only one family member left. This is his elder brother Jahidul (12). While asked about the future, Obidhul replied “I need to do day labor job to survive”.
“Please Allah, ensure my mother’s stay in heaven.” This is his prayer to Allah.
Floating Island Kolagacia is just beside the Bay of Bengal. Smooth grassland spreads around this island; islanders were destroyed by this cyclone although the home reconstruction begins already by their own efforts. According to the statement of islanders, one thousand people died over there during the time of cyclone Sidr.
Category: Climate Change
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- Global Voices Online » Bangladesh: Miracle Boy | December 11, 2007
This is really miracle, কথায় যেমন বলে- আল্লাহ যদি কাউকে বাঁচিয়ে রাখলে কার সাধ্য কিছু করে। Wishing his mother’s stay in heaven and his safest, as well secured living on earth.
This is a pathetic story. I hope some one will come forward to help this boy. He is only 7 years old and he has no bright future …
sidr has brought out the good bad and ugly of the fishing trade. its the unending trap of debt that keeps the 7 yrs olds like obaidul away from school, sorting and drying fishes like his unfortunate mother, becoming little more than bondaged labours in a futile attempt to pay their way out of the highly exploitative fishing trade. The stories that had been reported in the daily stars gives a vivid picture of how bahaddors lure unemployed young men in the promise of a high paying seasonal job only to be duped into a form of indentured slavery. If that was not enough certainly the arbritary pricing of the middlemen which forces the fishermen to sell their catch at two third of the market price back to the bahaddors should have been screaming from the front pages of all major newspapers had our journalists paid more attention to the plight of our fishermen, before sidr. the trawler owners and head-hunters are financed by the fishing mafiosi (like major retd zia uddin) who are the unspoken law, distributing relief and withholding it, in these treacherous waters. Has the government thought of how to clean the fishing trade which is the second highest economic crop of our country of its money laundering and labour malpractices?
সিডরে যারা যারা মারা গেছে বা স্বজন হারিয়েছে তাদের প্রত্যেকের ঘটনাই এরকম দুঃখের। মনখারাপ করা লেখা।