bdnews24.com :
Japan is sending nearly 50 of its volunteers working in remote Bangladesh on “a four-week leave” in the wake of the murder of its national in a northern district and Tokyo’s travel advisory.
“This is a temporary return,” a senior official of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) told bdnews24.com.The official said 48 of the 70 volunteers currently working would be sent back to Japan as they were “feeling bored in Dhaka”. “Those who were afraid of the situation were brought to Dhaka after the incident and they were feeling bored. And then we took this decision,” the official, who declined to be named, said.
“We did it before during the political violence in January, February and March,” the official said, “but at the time we sent them in some neighbouring countries as part of training”.
Japanese farmer Kunio Hoshi was gunned down at Kaunia in Rangpur on Oct 3, five days after the murder of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella at Dhaka’s Gulshan diplomatic zone.
The murder prompted the Japan embassy in Dhaka to restrict movement of its nationals “on foot or rickshaw or three-wheelers” as Western countries, particularly the UK and the US were raising security alarms.
One of Bangladesh’s largest bilateral donors, Japan has been dispatching its volunteers here since 1973, a year and a half into the country’s birth.
So far, more than 1,200 volunteers have come to Bangladesh and worked in almost all sectors from rural development to health, education, and environment They come and adopt Bangladesh’s lifestyle, culture and food habits and learn the language to work in far-off villages.
JICA considers them as “one of the most promising engines” of their assistance programmes in Bangladesh.
Another JICA official, who is associated with the volunteer programme, told bdnews24.com that 31 of the 48 volunteers were sent on leave on Tuesday while the rest would be flown out on Wednesday. “We did not evacuate the houses that were rented for them. Their keys are with us. All furniture and belongings are also there in their homes,” the official said, dismissing any perception of “evacuation” when asked. “Most of them were from the Rangpur region,” he said.
He, however, said at least eight of them would run their term when they would be on leave, and “12 or 13 are newcomers”.
“They (newcomers) are yet to learn and adopt to Bangladeshi culture,” he said, “so we had to bring them back to Dhaka and put them on leave”.
Both JICA officials said if they could provide all of them cars, then they would have stayed in their workplace. “But we don’t have so many cars and as they are volunteers they cannot indulge in luxury. “They work living with the rural community. This is part of their volunteerism,” one of them said.
