Bodies of 398 migrants sent home from Jeddah

At least 398 bodies of Bangladeshi migrants were sent from Saudi Arabia's Jeddah region in the 2020-2021 fiscal year following efforts taken by the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah.

Employers of 391 of the workers paid for the expenditure of sending the bodies, which saved almost Tk 9 crore, the consulate general said in a recent letter to the expatriates' welfare ministry.

The seven other bodies were flown home with the expenditures borne by the Bangladesh government.

Talking to this correspondent on a messaging app, Aminul Islam, labour counsellor at the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah, yesterday said in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, 591 bodies of Bangladeshi expatriates arrived in the country.

As per the consulate general data, about seven lakh Bangladeshis live in different cities in the Jeddah region. The consulate general covers seven of the 13 provinces in the Kingdom.

According to the Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh, around 22.8 lakh Bangladeshis are currently employed in Saudi Arabia.

In a report published last month, the consulate general mentioned that at least 3,437 Bangladeshis died in Saudi Arabia between July 2019 and June 2021.

Of them, 2,448 were buried in the Gulf country with the consent of their families back home.