Blinded and broken, Sohag returns home in a coffin

For Sohag Ahmed’s family in Jhenaidah, the wait for his return from Cambodia is finally coming to an end, but not in the way they had hoped for.

The 23-year-old had gone abroad with borrowed money and a promise of work. Months later, his mother says, he told her over the phone that he had been tortured, his eyes pierced with needles and kerosene poured into them.

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“He said, ‘Amma, my eyes have become blurry … everything is dark,’” Sohagi Khatun recalled, breaking down as she spoke to The Daily Star.

The family had borrowed heavily to send Sohag abroad, hoping he would help lift them out of poverty. Instead, his parents say, demands for money kept coming from Cambodia.

“They kept saying my son was sick and asking us to send money,” Sohagi said, adding, “They even ignored our request to send our son back home.”

“We borrowed money with interest to send him. We are poor people. We don’t even have a katha of farmland,” she said.

Sohag’s father, Billal Hossain, said the family paid money in several stages, eventually spending around Tk 9 lakh.

Sohag died in Cambodia on December 31, 2025, months after travelling there for work with clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET).

His body is now expected to return to Bangladesh on Thursday, along with two other Bangladeshi workers, who died in Cambodia.

Al Amin Noyon, deputy manager of BRAC’s Migration Programme, confirmed to The Daily Star that the three bodies are scheduled to arrive at 11:05am on October 8 on a Malaysia Airlines flight.

Apart from Sohag, the two other deceased are Asif Khan, 24, of Chuadanga, and Jewel Hossain, 53, of Bogura.

Asif went to Cambodia for work in January this year after obtaining BMET clearance. He died there on March 28, just a few months after leaving Bangladesh.

Jewel also died in Cambodia. His body is expected to arrive on the same flight.

Sohag, from Jhenaidah, travelled to Cambodia in April 2025 for employment. His family and those assisting the case allege that after reaching the country, he was trafficked into a Chinese-controlled cyber-scam compound.

The three deaths are not the only cases involving Bangladeshi workers in Cambodia.

A separate official document of the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board shows that Md Shahnaz Talukdar of Faridpur died in Cambodia on March 27 this year.

The April 5 government letter identifies him as a Bangladeshi migrant worker and says arrangements were being made to bring his body home. It also states that his passport was found to be valid.

At least 583 Bangladeshis had been repatriated from Cambodia by June this year, including workers rescued from cyber-scam compounds. Another 38 Bangladeshis rescued from such compounds returned home on September 3.

Returnees told The Daily Star that many had travelled after being promised jobs such as computer operators, data-entry workers or factory employees, only to find themselves confined and forced to work in online scam operations.

Some returnees also alleged that their passports were confiscated, workers were transferred between operators, and those who refused to work or failed to meet targets faced physical abuse.