Expatriates deported, 8 in coffins

A total of 183 Bangladeshis, 20 of whom are women, returned from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night.

89 Bangladeshis returned on a Saudi Airlines flight at 11:20 pm, and another flight at 1:10 am of the same airlines bought back 94 Bangladeshis.

The returned Bangladeshis were provided with emergency services by the Brac migration programme assisted by the expatriates' welfare desk.

One of them, Sathi Begum, 30 was in such a bad condition that she was rushed to a hospital in Uttara. Sathi said she started working as a housemaid a few years back in Saudi Arabia, and that she used to be tortured by her employers there.

Twenty other women who came back with Sathi Begum have similar stories to tell.

Sharif from Pabna went to Saudi Arabia a year ago. He returned empty handed on Wednesday night despite having legal papers. This is not just the case with Sharif, 183 workers suffered the same fate.

It is not just deported workers who arrived in Dhaka. Eight coffins with the dead bodies of expatriate workers also arrived on Wednesday night. Five coffins came from Saudi Arabia and three from Malaysia.

The deceased are Roksana from Pirojpur, Ripa from Sunamganj and Alamgir from Dhaka. They were working in Saudi Arabia. The names of the other two deceased from Saudi Arabia couldn't be verified.

The three coffins from Malaysia carried the bodies of Ayub Ali from Bandarban, Liton Miah from Brahmanbaria and Abdur Rahim from Tangail.

A total of 409 dead bodies of expatriate workers have been brought back to Bangladesh so far this year.

According to Shariful Hasan, the head of the Brac migration programme, as many as 3,638 people retuned from Saudi Arabia in January alone; 175 of them were female.

The expatriates' welfare desk said that 64,638 workers were deported in 2019. 

"We do not just provide service to the returnees at the airport. We try to rehabilitate them through counselling, training and financial support. The responsibility has to be taken by both the government and private organisations. Recruiting agencies also have to be responsible so that people do not return empty handed. The government and embassies should also look into it," added Hasan.