No solution before Eid
Uncertainties gripped the 197 Bangladeshi workers in Libya who had been camping on a field under the open sky since they had quit their jobs a week earlier for alleged tortures and non-payment of salaries.
Since then they had been living in a field near a police station at Borak Al Shafi, 1000 kilometres from the capital Tripoli.
The workers said the managers of Al Rayed, a construction firm did not pay their salaries for the last three months, forced them to live in substandard conditions in the labour camps and beat them up for petty reasons.
After the Bangladesh embassy intervened on September 5, the company assured to address the grievances though the workers refused to go back to work in fear of more abuses on their return which led the embassy to decide to transfer them to other jobs.
Meanwhile, on September 6 two alleged Bangladeshi brokers Harun and Rabiul Islam promised them jobs and lured them to an underground chamber in Garian, some 100km away from Tripoli early yesterday, Mahbub, a worker told The Daily Star.
The two initially appeared sympathetic, but when they were brought to Garian their attitudes aroused suspicion among the workers, he said.
Mahbub said he had heard of cases when brokers confine workers to extort money from them. They decided to leave immediately and returned to Tripoli along with the two alleged brokers and handed them over to the embassy.
Harun however, denied being a broker saying that he worked for a Chinese construction firm and had taken the workers to Garian to provide them with jobs in two foreign firms.
“They misunderstood our intentions as we temporarily kept them in the underground room,” he said.
First Secretary of Bangladesh Embassy Ahsan Kibria Siddiqui asked the workers not to move anywhere till they are formally transferred.
Kibria said he had spoken to Mahbub yesterday, and was aware of the difficulties the workers are going through.
“I will try to find jobs for them when the offices reopen after the Eid vacation,” he said.
When our correspondent asked Mahbub how they planned to survive until they got new jobs, he said they were depending on help from friends.
“We won’t be celebrating Eid as our future looks very bleak. Please pray for us so that we get jobs,” said a worker.
When Kibria was verifying the validity of the allegations surrounding Harun and Rabiul he refused to comment without checking, and added that, he had never heard of brokers confining workers in underground rooms for extortion.
There were some Bangladeshi brokers in Libya who used to supply workers to various firms for money, but the Libyan government deported them for carrying out such illegal activities, Kibria said.
