Bangladesh evacuates stranded workers from Iraq

By Masud Karim

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh has begun evacuating thousands of stranded workers who were trafficked into war-ravaged Iraq by illegal manpower traders, officials said on Wednesday.

An Emirates Airlines flight carrying 42 Bangladeshis arrived in Dhaka on Thursday as part of the evacuation process under the initiative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Bangladeshis were promised jobs in Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries but sent to Iraq instead, they said.

"My agent promised me a job in Dubai as a caterer," said Mohammad Ashraful, 36. "But he seized my passport from a Dubai hotel and forced me to go to Iraq," he told Reuters.

Ashraful paid 249,000 taka (1,830 pounds) to his agent by selling family land and gold in his attempt to find a job but returned with nothing more than a plastic bag filled with his clothes.

Bangladesh has banned sending workers to Iraq since the 2003 war for security reasons, but thousands of job seekers were sent to the Gulf country by illegal recruiters.

The workers, many of whom said they had spent huge sums of money in their search for work, were put through several hours of interrogation by customs officials and detectives on their arrival at Dhaka airport.

Nearly 5 million Bangladeshis now work all over the world, mostly in the Middle East, and send home nearly $6 billion (3 billion pounds) annually.