Bangladeshis in Iraq safe, says envoy

Dhaka, July 6, 2014 (New Age): Bangladeshi nationals living in trouble-hit Iraq are so far safe and no Bangladeshi nurse has been held hostage in Tikrit, a strategically important city of Iraq, said the Bangladesh Ambassador in Baghdad on Saturday. A number of local media quoting Indian media claimed that 10 Bangladeshi nurses, employed in a Hospital in Tikrit city, have been in the captivity of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham supporters. ‘There was no Bangladeshi nurse (in that hospital). Indian nurses were there,’ ambassador Major General Rezanur Rahman Khan said over phone. The envoy, however, said some 31 Bangladeshi male workers, mostly cleaners, used to work in the hospital and they had been taken to a safe zone. ‘We are in touch with them and they are fine,’ he said. Responding to a question, the envoy said, ‘Nothing is favorable here, but the good news is that there is no report of casualty (of Bangladesh nationals).’ Meanwhile, India brought back 46 nurses on Saturday by a special Air India flight who were freed by militants in war-torn Iraq on Friday evening, reports NDTV. An official in Dhaka, preferring anonymity, said that most of the Bangladeshis were unwilling to come back home from the war-hit Iraq saying they were yet to recover the money invested to go to Iraq. Earlier, the government suspended sending workers to Iraq till confirmation of safe and secure environment there. It was estimated that over 14,000 Bangladesh nationals were working in Iraq, mostly in the construction sector, according to the foreign ministry in Dhaka.