Stranded in Afghanistan: Repatriation of 25 workers uncertain

The return of 25 Bangladeshi workers, who have been stranded at a factory in Afghanistan for over eight months without work and salaries, remains uncertain as there is still no progress in their repatriation process.

Their families have been requesting the governments of Bangladesh and Afghanistan to take effective measures to bring them back home for the last couple of months.

In April, families of some of the victims filed a written complaint with the Afghan embassy in Dhaka against the owner of the factory. They also requested the embassy to arrange safe return of their relatives. 

Since April this year, authorities concerned of both countries have been assuring the workers and their families of taking quick steps for their deportation, but no headway has been made to this end yet, the victims and their relatives have alleged.

"We are very frustrated and worried about the sluggish progress to send back us to Bangladesh. Here, we are leading the life like prisoners. We cannot go outside the factory's boundary,” Mohammad Manik, one of the victims, told The Daily Star over the phone on Tuseday.

Hailing from Mymensingh's Fulbaria, the youth along with 24 other Bangladeshis had left home for Afghanistan on October 10 last year under the arrangement of an Indian national from West Bengal to work at Afghan Folad Steel Mill Co Ltd.

The Indian had promised the workers lucrative salaries. He had worked with some of the 25 Bangladeshis in Dhaka. He had managed visas for them from the Afghan embassy in Dhaka. Each of them had paid him Tk 1 to 1.5 lakh for managing visas, Manik claimed.

The factory in Herat city of Afghanistan produces steel billet for exporting it to Middle Eastern countries. It has around 100 employees, mostly from Afghanistan.

Factory owner Abdullah Rasuli had agreed to pay each worker $600 a month, but he gave only $400, Manik alleged.

After paying them salaries for two months before the closure of the factory, the owner had left them abandoned in the factory. Since then, the Bangladeshis have been passing their days in a miserable condition.

Strapped for cash, they hardly can meet their daily needs, let alone send money home.               

Some local workers at the factory help them get some food. They have been asked by the factory authorities not to leave the factory compound for "security reasons".

"Before Eid-ul-Azha, the police commissioner of Heart province visited our factory and assured us of sending us back home within two weeks after the Eid. But we don't know what will actually happen,” Manik said.

Officials at the Afghan embassy in Dhaka and the Bangladesh foreign and expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministries told this correspondent that the Bangladeshis' repatriation might take time.

"We have been informed from sources in Afghanistan that the Herat government [provincial] is sincerely trying to speed up the repatriation process of the Bangladeshis,” an official at the Afghan embassy in Dhaka told The Daily Star on Wednesday.

The Bangladeshis would be sent back with travel permits after resolving some of their problems, he added, but wished not to be named.

"I cannot confirm you whether the Bangladeshis can be brought back within the next two weeks. It might take a couple of weeks. But authorities concerned of Afghanistan are trying their best to send them back home,” the official told this correspondent.

A senior official at the foreign ministry of Bangladesh said they were dealing with the matter sincerely. “We are doing our best to bring them back home as soon as possible,” he said, adding that they requested the expatriates' welfare ministry to take initiatives to this end.

Jabed Ahmed, additional secretary of the expatriates' welfare ministry, said they would make a decision soon in this regard.