Workers' death not unusual
A parliamentary standing committee yesterday observed that recent death of Bangladeshi workers in different countries is 'not unusual' as such number of deaths occurred in previous times, too.
The standing committee on expatriate welfare and overseas employment ministry said they would look into the matter and, if necessary, would go for investigation into the death of Bangladeshi workers abroad.
"The recent death rate of Bangladeshi workers in abroad is the same as in previous times," Barrister Anisul Islam Mammud, chairman of the committee told The Daily Star after the meeting at the parliament building.
"We have discussed the issue in the meeting in detail and the committee thinks that the number of Bangladeshi workers who died abroad is not unusual compared to the previous record," Anisul said.
He mentioned that a total of 12,307 Bangladeshi workers died abroad in last seven years from 2002 to March 2009 that means on an average 164 migrant workers die every month.
But the number of deaths of migrant workers abroad has been increasing significantly since 2004. Some 2,237 bodies of Bangladeshi workers were sent home last year while 1,673 in 2007, 1,402 in 2006, 1,248 in 2005 and 788 in 2004.
A total of 904 bodies of migrant workers returned home from abroad in last five months. Of them, 391 died of cardiac arrest, 268 in workplace accidents, 62 in road accidents, 115 of other sicknesses while the remaining died of various reasons, according to the official source at Zia International Airport.
There are about 65 lakh Bangladeshi workers across the world. The highest number of them is, of course, in the Middle East countries.
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