Bangladeshi Migrants: Another 109 return from Saudi Arabia

At least 109 Bangladeshi migrant workers have been deported from Saudi Arabia.

A flight of Saudi Airlines, carrying the migrant workers, landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka around 11:30pm on Thursday.

With the fresh deportation, a total of 1,610 Bangladeshi migrants were sent back from KSA in the last 16 days, said Shariful Hasan, chief of Brac Migration Programme.

Earlier in 2019, a total of 25,789 Bangladeshi migrants were deported from the Middle Eastern country and most of the workers returned empty-handed, he informed.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a lucrative destination for Bangladesh migrant workers since it resumed hiring them in 2015.

Between 2015 and September 2019, the KSA received about 13.68 lakh Bangladeshi workers, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training.

Saudi authorities have sent back over 40,000 Bangladeshi workers in the last two years for staying there after their documents had expired, changing job without permission and not working for the designated employer in violation of the local law, according to Brac Migration Programme.

The Gulf country announced a crackdown on undocumented workers in November, 2017. Over 2.1 million migrants were arrested in the following year, according to Human Rights Watch’s World Report-2019.