Staff Reporter :
A total of 215 more Bangladeshi workers returned home mostly empty handed from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night.
Officials of Wage Earners Welfare Board and BRAC migration programme said that the Saudi returnees landed in Dhaka by two flights of the Saudi Airline.
Of the flights, one landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 11:20pm with 86 workers and another at 1:15am with 129 workers.
Among the returnees, Ilias Ali of Golapgonj, Sylhet, said he came back in totally empty handed with a huge burden of loans, which he borne to met the costing of Saudi migration.
“A recruiting agency sent me to Saudi Arab saying, “I must get a good job in a certain company there. But I got no job in the mentioned company. Then I worked here and there for two years,” Ilias said.
He said that he spent about 21,000 Riyal in two phases to get Akama (Work permit) but failed to get it.
Lastly, his latest Kofil (employer) asked him for 27,000 Riyal to prepare an Akama, but he said had no such amount of money to him.
Ilias then decided to surrender himself to police and returned by them to the country.
The over 50 years age, Ilias is in serious tension how he will repay his loans and how to meet family demands, including study costing of four children.
Kamal Hossain of the same district also expressed his sorrow story telling his pains of returning with empty handed.
Similarly, Sohrab of Kishoreganj said he went to the KSA two years ago. He failed to even earn his migration costs of Tk 5 lakh yet, but police forcibly sent him back.
Sohrab said his future has gone in dark for the Saudi police crackdown.
Harunur Rashid of Gazipur said the Saudi police detained him while he was returning residence from workplace.
“I have legal work permit (Akama), but the authorities ignored my repeated appeals and sent me back home,” he said.
Imran Hossain also from Gazipur said, he sent back home by Saudi authority. He also returned home almost empty handed.
Shahbul Islam of Tangail migrated to Saudi Arabia with driving visa about four months ago. He returned empty handed as he failed to get job there and earned nothing in last four months.
Zahed Ali of the same district also returned empty handed.
Ibrahim Hossain of Cumilla said his dream has destroyed following the raids by Saudi police as he returned home without earning sufficient money against his migration cost.
Similarly, Babul Mian of Narsingdi also expressed his agony of returning empty handed.
Mentionable that in two weeks of the current month (November), around 1,561 workers were sent to Saudi Arabia while over 21,000 workers were deported from that country since January this year.
