Voyage to Europe: 17 Bangladeshis to return home today

Responding to a call of the foreign ministry, 17 Bangladeshi migrants out of 64, who have been stranded in the Mediterranean Sea, are on their way to return home this afternoon.

Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bangladesh Embassy in Libya confirmed it this noon.

The migrants were stranded off the Tunisian coast of Zarzis for 17 days after they were rescued by an Egyptian boat on Tunisian waters on May 31.   

They were kept at a shelter centre of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Tunis and the process is underway to bring them home by this afternoon, the sources said quoting ASM Ashraful Islam, labour counsellor of Bangladesh Embassy in Libya.  

The Tunisian Red Crescent has been providing them with food and medicines since then.

The migrants initially refused to disembark while the Tunisian authorities did not agree to allow them on its shore saying that its shelter centres were overcrowded, an official of the foreign ministry said seeking anonymity.

After they were rescued, the migrants were not willing to return to Tunisia. Instead, they wanted to go to Europe a proposition that’s not possible given the Europe’s strong stance against illegal migration which has seen a sharp rise since Libya plunged into civil war after the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Neither Tunisia nor any European country agreed to accept them.

On June 17, Chiranjib Sarker, director general of the foreign ministry’s consular wing, said that it took hours of discussion with the migrants to convince them to return home.

The IOM will provide the Bangladeshis with air tickets, Chiranjib added.

Source: thedailystar