Anowar, Helal may return home Sunday

The two Bangladeshi migrant workers who were said to have been abducted by unknown militants in Libya might be returning home this Sunday, a top official concerned said.

“They will be taken to the Malta office of VAOS, their employer company, this evening,” ASM Ashraful Islam, counsellor (labour wing) to Bangladesh mission in Tripoli, told The Daily Star this afternoon. “They might return home this Sunday.”

Anowar Hossain, hailing from Noakhali, and Helal Uddin, from Jamalpur, are both in good health and told their families yesterday they will be coming home “soon”.

A senior official at Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment told The Daily Star that the Bangladeshi ambassador in Libya has spoken to the two and added that Anowar and Helal “will be coming home soon.”

Helena Akhter, 17, elder daughter of Helal, told our Jamalpur correspondent that she spoke to her father yesterday. “He said he was good and he is now in Tripoli.”

Helena said she talked with her father yesterday around 6:00pm and added that her father was in Libyan police custody for some time after being freed.

Marufa Khatun, wife of Anowar Hossain, told The Daily Star that she spoke to her husband as well and he was in good health. “He is now in Tripoli.”

Helal and Anowar were first abducted from a Libyan oil field on March 6 and later freed. It was first said that ISIS caught them hostage, but Bangladesh government later said no militant group claimed responsibility for the abduction.