159 Bangladeshi victims return home from Myanmar

A total of 159 Bangladeshi trafficking victims who were rescued by Myanmar authorities from the Bay of Bengal were brought back home from the neighbouring country yesterday.

The fortune seekers were brought back through the Bangladesh-Myanmar Friendship Bridge at Ghumdum point along the border around 1:00pm following a flag meeting between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Myanmar's Border Guard Police (BGP) at Muangdaw immigration camp.

Cox's Bazar BGB-17 Battalion Commanding Officer Lt Col Robiul Islam led the 18-member BGB team while Sue Nayent, deputy director of Myanmar Immigration Department, led the Myanmar BGP team, reports our Cox's Bazar correspondent.

With the 159, a total of 501 Bangladeshi trafficking victims have so far been repatriated from Myanmar in four phases since last June 8.

Of the 159 victims, 80 are from Narsingdi, 18 from Chittagong, 17 from Habiganj, 13 from Kishoreganj, 12 from Narayanganj, 12 from Faridpur, three from Shariatpur, two from Naogaon and one each from Natore and Barisal. There are 16 children among the rescued Bangladeshis.

The victims were handed over to Cox's Bazar police. In order to verify their nationalities for the second time, police had sent them to a temporary camp at the Cox's Bazar Cultural Centre, Mohammad Ali Hossen, deputy commissioner of Cox's Bazar, told The Daily Star.

The victims were supposed to be brought back to Bangladesh on July 30 and August 5, but the programmes were postponed due to bad weather caused by cyclone Komen and other reasons.

The Myanmar Navy on May 21 and 29 rescued 208 and 727 fortune seekers from their territorial waters and claimed that all of them were from Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh government, after verifying their nationalities, brought back a total of 342 Bangladeshi trafficking victims in three phases on June 8, June 19, and July 22 from Myanmar.