Shawdesh Desk:

Dhaka has requested the International Organisation for Migration to arrange chartered flights to bring back Bangladeshis willing to leave Lebanon amid airstrikes by Israel on the West Asian country.

‘We have requested the IOM to arrange flights to evacuate Bangladeshis willing to leave Lebanon. But Beirut’s airport is currently unsafe for flight operations. We have suggested finding an alternative location outside the war zone for the evacuation of Bangladesh nationals,’ foreign Adviser Md Touhid Hossain told reporters on Tuesday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said that the Bangladesh mission in Lebanon was instructed to compile a list of expatriates who wanted to return home in the given situation there.

Migrant workers in different shelters were crying to return home as Israel increased

attacks on Lebanon and killed several thousand people so far.

Stranded Bangladeshis alleged that they were living inhuman lives in the war-ravaged Lebanon because of the shortage of food, drinking water, and shelter.

They urged the government to take them back home immediately as the situation had been deteriorating in the West Asian country since Israel intensified attacks further since Sunday night.

Md Jahidul Islam Khan, a Bangladeshi migrant in Lebanon, said that they feared deaths every moment in their shelters due to Israeli attacks.

He said that the shelter centers were facing a shortage of food as they had expended all the savings they had with them as they had been jobless for several weeks since Israel’s attack on Beirut.

‘We are not seeing any hope of normalcy in Lebanon. We have already lost all our savings. Staying here hopelessly is nothing but risking our lives. We want to return home,’ said Shahedur Rahman,

a Bangladeshi migrant in Beirut.

The Bangladesh embassy in Beirut in a notice early Tuesday said that they were trying to reach out to Bangladeshis who still needed safer shelter, food, and essential goods for the people who were already in different shelters.

The embassy asked Bangladeshis, who were yet to get safer shelters, to contact them by calling the embassy’s front desk number 71217139, hotline number 70635278 and helpline number 81744207.

‘Embassy continued efforts to ensure safer shelter for migrants and providing them with essentials,’ read the statement.

Several people remained missing and many became injured due to the indiscriminate air strikes by Israel.

According to the media reports, at least 2,000 people, including dozens of children, were killed since Israel intensified a bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23.

According to Bangladesh’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training statistics, at least 2,67,364 Bangladeshis migrated to the country since 2002. Of them, 61,786 migrated since 2015.

Migrants estimated that over one lakh Bangladeshi migrants were now working in the West Asian country.