On January 11, a 15-year-old boy named Fahim was playing hide-and-seek with his friends in Bangladesh. He jumped into a shipping container at the port, thinking it was a good place to hide. Unfortunately, he locked himself in and after struggling to get out, gave up and fell asleep. He woke up in Malaysia almost a week later.

The shipping container was put on a ship, with Fahim inside, and left the port city of Chittagong in Bangladesh on January 12. It arrived in Port Klang, Malaysia on Tuesday, January 17. For six days, the boy was stuck inside the container without food or water.

Some workers at the Port Klang port heard knocking coming from inside the container. They found the boy emaciated and confused, as he stumbled out of the container. He couldn’t speak the language, and the staff called police, thinking he might have been a victim of trafficking. 

Officers from several departments responded. The boy was taken to a hospital on a stretcher for treatment of a fever.

Video footage of the fatigued and hungry boy emerging from the container was shared on social media.

Malaysia’s Home Minister, Datuk Seri Nasution, released a statement about the incident, confirming that authorities found the boy inside a container that arrived on a ship at the port.

It is not the first time a teenager mistakenly climbed into a shipping container and was found several miles away. In October 2022, the outcome was not so lucky. Malaysian authorities discovered a 15-year-old’s decomposing body inside a shipping container that was shipped from Chittagong, Bangladesh to Penang Port, Malaysia.