A consular team from the foreign ministry stationed at Ras-Jdir, on the Tunisian side of its border with Libya, has been receiving frequent calls from several Bangladeshi families living in different cities and townships of Libya, seeking advice on how to return to Bangladesh, the ministry said in a release.
Bangladesh ambassador to Libya ABM Nuruzzaman told New Age over phone on Monday that he was aware that the Bangladeshi families were seeking the advice on phone.
He said though he had no clear picture about the exact number of Bangladeshi families who were stranded in Libya now, it was estimated that 20,000 families awaited repatriation from the civil war torn country.
According to available statistics, 35,433 Bangladeshis were brought back home from Libya until Tuesday afternoon.
Officials said that the consular team from the ministry at Ras-Jdir was, however, advising Bangladeshis intending to return home to take a safe route to Ras-jdir.
Officials of the foreign ministry in Dhaka, however, said that the consular teams at both Ras-jdir in Tunisia and Al-Salum in Egypt would coordinate their return home depending on the availability of flights.
They said that 23 Bangladeshis at Ras Jdir border point of Tunisia await repatriation home.
On Monday, they said, only one Bangladeshi crossed over to Tunisia from Libya.
They said that 698 Bangladeshis, who had crossed over into Egypt from
Libya until Monday, were now at Al Salloum border point awaiting repatriation.
The International Organization for Migration informed the Bangladesh consular team that it was evacuating from Misrata many people, about 1,000 among them could be Bangladeshis.
IOM said that these people would ultimately arrive at Al Salum through the Libyan city of Benghazi.
According to the foreign ministry consular team there was enough food and drinking water, inadequacy of tents and poor sanitation.
As a result, most of the Bangladeshis there are passing their days under open sky, said the report.
The otherwise mild weather is punctuated by frequent desert storms. Thousands of African nationals out of Libya have taken refuge in what could be called proper camps, the report said.
IOM representatives at the border point informed the consular team that IOM was not in a position to arrange the repatriation flights immediately due to shortage of funds.
Officials in the foreign ministry said that they were persistently pressing Biman as well as IOM to arrange the flights to repatriate the stranded Bangladeshis as quickly as possible.
They said that the consular team would issue 'One Way Travel Permits' to all the stranded Bangladeshis needing the document for the journey back home.
They have squatting out in the open or in containers at the port area, without proper access to food, clean water or medical care, said the report.
Traumatised by weeks of civil war in Misrata, many of them have been left weakened, it said.
According to it, some 1,500 people of different nationalities around the Misrata harbour in Libya await repatriation.
Reports from there indicate that more and more people were moving from the suburbs of the city in western Libya towards the port out of the expectation of safe evacuation, said an IOM release.
'We expect that many migrants who were hiding in sections of the city formally under the control of Gaddafi's forces will make the most of a temporary lull in the fighting to reach the harbour area in the hope of being evacuated,' said IOM's Representative for the Middle East, Pasquale Lupoli.
Source: New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment