DHAKA, OCT 22 – The first group of 54 out of about 1,800 Bangladeshis who wanted to flee Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon arrived safely in the homeland yesterday on a government-supported flight.
Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry estimates that between 70,000 and 100,000 of its nationals work in Lebanon, mostly as laborers or domestic workers.
For 68-year-old Abul Kashem, who has lived in Lebanon’s seaside capital Beirut for almost 40 years, and has lived through fierce fighting during the civil war, said he had never seen a war like what happened last month.
“All the fuel pumps where I work have been destroyed”, he said, after arriving exhausted on a plane chartered by the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
Newspaper Business Standard Bangladesh has reported five Bangladeshi nationals have been injured, while thousands more have fled the border zone with Israel into northern Lebanon. – AFP
