WB to give $30m for returnees

The World Bank will provide an emergency loan assistance of $30 million for the payment of airfare of repatriating Bangladeshis from Libya and for their rehabilitation.
Jahed Hossain Khan, senior economist of the World Bank (WB), Dhaka office told BSS yesterday the loan assistance proposal would be approved by the board of the bank by this month.
The government on March 28 requested the WB to provide the loan for the payment of airfare of the Bangladeshis returned from troubled Libya and for their rehabilitation.
In this context, the Dhaka office of the bank prepared a proposal and sent it to its head office in Washington.
Contacted, Expatriate Welfare Secretary Dr Zafar Ahmed Khan told BSS a total of 35,163 Bangladeshis so far returned from Libya. Of them, around 25,000 came with the help of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Out of 25,000, the air fare of 10,000 Bangladeshis would be paid by the government which will cost $10.02 million, he said.
The government has already taken an initiative to make a database of returnees for their rehabilitation, Zafar added.
Some 54,000 Bangladeshis are still waiting in Libya and its bordering states to return home, sources at the expatriate welfare ministry said, adding that the authorities concerned have been maintaining contacts with IOM and other international organisations to bring them back.