Govt takes maiden initiative to bring back Bangladeshis
The government has decided to bring 15 Bangladeshi workers back home from Iraq on its own initiative for the first time since the war-torn country went into internal conflicts involving different forces.
A flight of Arabian Airlines carrying the migrants will land at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport early tomorrow, said a foreign ministry statement yesterday.
The Bangladeshis had been rescued from Mosul city captured by the Sunni rebels in the early phase of their fight with the Iraqi government forces since June 5.
The helpless migrants had been waiting to return home; then the Bangladesh embassies in Iraq and Turkey took necessary measures to send them back home, said the statement.
Maj Gen Rezanur Rahman Khan, Bangladesh ambassador in Iraq, however, said the embassy had rescued 33 Bangladeshis from Mosul with the assistance of the Iraqi administration.
“Of the 33 Bangladeshis, 18 of them fled as they did not want to return home because they had migrated to Iraq spending huge amounts of money,” he told The Daily Star over the phone.
More than 25,000 Bangladeshis are working in different sectors in the trouble-torn country. They have been passing days in insecurity since the conflicts broke out among different forces.
But the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry was claiming that the Bangladeshis were not facing any problem as they were not the target.
However, at least 105 Bangladeshis have returned from a company based in Baghdad in three phases this month on their own initiatives on security grounds.
Around 4,000 Bangladeshis alone are working for “Bismaya New City Project" in a South Korean company, Hanwha Engineering and Construction, in the southern part of Baghdad.
Comments