Desk Report
Bangladeshi workers are being allured to migrate to Libya en route to European countries by organized transnational trafficking rackets with false promises. The traffickers pocket huge money of the workers who end up as their victims. The trafficking rackets use the air routes, Dhaka to Benghazi via Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Alexandria.
From Libya the victims are sent to European destinations by ships and ordinary boats.
On Wednesday, at least 157 Bangladeshi workers who were detained in Libya were repatriated to Bangladesh by the International Organization for Migration.
Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training director general Md Salim Reza told New Age Friday that all the Bangladeshi workers were illegally sent to Libya.
Job opportunities dried up in Libya as internal strife continues there, he said.
On Wednesday, the IOM repatriated to Bangladesh Mintu Matabbar, 38, of Madaripur and 156 other workers from Libya after they had been detained there.
Mintu told New Age that broker Sobhan howlader of Kabirajpur-Reshom Potti, Rajoir, Madaripur, took Tk nine lakh from him with the promise of sending him to Spain via Libya.
Broker Sobhan still in Libya was likely to come to Bangladesh in October, he said.
The same broker took Tk 7.50 lakh from Mohammad Zahidul, 18, from the same area in Madaripur with the promise to send him to Spain via Libya with Mintu.
Zahid told New Age that he was under treatment at Madaripur Sadar Hospital.
On April 24, 2018, the ill-fated journey of Mintu and Zahid began and they flew from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on board a Biman flight.
They left with tourist visas of the United Arab Emirate where they were kept for seven days.
From Abu Dhabi they were taken to Dhabi in a microbus and after spending one week at a Dubai hotel they were sent to Alexandria Airport by Emirates and then to Benghazi by an African flight.
In Benghazi they were received by brokers who detained them in a room for 15 days when they were beaten, maimed and forced to bring taka two lakh from home. They were kept in semi starving conditions and were also denied enough water to drink.
They said that after 15 days, they were sold to local people who sent them to Libyan police who detained them.
Mohammad Ekramul Haque, 50, of Sonagazi, Feni, narrated even a more harrowing story.
Ekram, who was working in Libya paid Tk five lakh to Benghazi based Bangladeshi broker Mohammad Jasim who promised to send him to Italy.
Father of two kids, Ekram was among the 157 Bangladeshis repatriated by the IOM after losing all savings and a victim of trafficking.
WARBE Development Foundation chairman Syed Saiful Haque said that lack of awareness was making countless people in this country victims of trafficking trapped by brokers who were extorting them.
He said that the government should make people aware that war torn Libya, Syria and Iraq had no jobs to offer.
The immigration should stop the victims from leaving Bangladesh, he said.
Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program chairman Shakirul Islam said that organized traffickers were active in remote corners of Bangladesh to allure villagers with non-existent jobs in Europe.
He demanded immediate crackdown on travel agencies and the traffickers cheating the villagers.
OKUP’s study since May shows that 81 per cent of Bangladeshi workers in Italy were victims of trafficking from war torn Libya where they became jobless.
At least 16 per cent of the victims were recruited from Bangladesh offering jobs in the Sudan and Egypt from where they were shipped to Italy via Libyan coast, according to the study.
The study shows that three per cent of the Bangladeshis working in Italy had gone there via Turkey and Greece.
Over 79.3 per cent of Bangladeshi migrants were put on ordinary boats by the cruel traffickers to cross the rough sea to reach Italy.
Most of the victims were from Madaripur, Shariatpur, Comilla and Noakhali revealed the OKUP study
On an average each victim had to pay around $8,000 to brokers to go to Italy, the study said.
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