The Bangladeshi government has announced that 263 Bangladeshi citizens will return from Libya.

Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Rafiqul Alam said in a weekly press conference that the detained citizen will return from Libya on Tuesday as part of an initiative to gradually return all detainees to their country.

“Those Bangladeshis who are in the detention centres of Libya will be brought back gradually. Work is underway. It will be done gradually. It depends on how many Bangladeshis are there in detention centres. Modalities will be worked out,” Alam said.

With the best efforts of the Bangladesh Embassy, Tripoli, and the direct cooperation of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), on November 28, 143 Bangladeshi citizens were returned on a charter flight after their release from the Ainjera Detention Center in Tripoli. Another group of 110 people were repatriated on a charter flight on November 30.

IOM gave each of them pocket money of Tk 5,896 ($53.57) and some food items.

The process of repatriating Bangladeshis trapped in Libya is ongoing with the efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bangladesh Embassy, Tripoli, and with the financial support of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said the alternative spokesperson.

The Bangladeshi citizens became stranded in Libya for various reasons. Some were lured by human traffickers who promised them lucrative jobs in Libya, but instead, they were held for ransom, exploited, or enslaved, while some went willingly on the search for greener pastures.
The stranded foreigners have been unable to return to Bangladesh due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the longstanding instability in the war-hit African country, following the collapse of the country’s institutions after the demise of Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan Head of State who was killed in 2011.
Many of the migrants have faced a lack of employment, security, and legal protection in Libya; they are often discriminated against and abused.