Jamil Mahmud

Government authorities in Bahrain have recently started moving thousands of Bangladeshi migrant workers from their squalid living facilities to makeshift establishments, to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Although the state-owned Bangladesh Television has started broadcasting in Middle East and North Africa recently on a pilot basis, private TV channels from Bangladedsh are still out of reach in the regions, limiting some 70 lakh Bangladeshi migrants from knowing about their homeland’s present situation amid coronavirus outbreak.

With several thousand Bangladeshis passing days in hardship in stranded situations in India for over a month, the government yesterday urged Bangladeshi citizens to have patience, assuring them of their gradual repatriation after bringing back patients from South India.

More than 4,300 undocumented Bangladeshi migrant workers are waiting to be repatriated from Kuwait, after they applied under a special amnesty declared by the Gulf country to reduce migrant population amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Singapore government has promised food, wages, and treatment costs of Bangladeshi migrant workers who are in isolation in the country’s dormitories.

Several thousand Bangladeshi migrant workers in the Middle East, Italy and some Southeast Asian countries are facing acute shortage of food and other essential commodities as their income sources remained shut amid shutdown enforced by the countries to contain coronavirus spread.

On top of the coronavirus crisis and the feared economic aftershock, Bangladesh is now facing pressure from different countries to take back undocumented Bangladeshis working there.

Many of about 30,000 Bangladeshis living in Spain have been spending days in uncertainty with no source of income as the country has been under a nationwide lockdown since March 14 to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Several thousand Bangladeshis have been stranded in nine Middle East countries amid suspension of air communications to and from Dhaka for containing Covid-19 spread over the last two weeks.

The government is going to launch a special open market sale (OMS) of coarse rice at Tk 10 a kg in all city corporation areas to ensure food for the urban poor amid the countrywide shutdown.

An estimated two lakh irregular Bangladeshi migrants in Malaysia are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus infections with the Southeast Asian country enforcing about a-month-long lockdown since March 18.

A plane departing Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport is a rare sight these days, as the country’s busiest airport has turned almost deserted due to air communication suspensions over global Covid-19 outbreak.

The Covid-19 outbreak hit Italy hard at a time when many Bangladeshi wage-earners and traders living in the country were hoping to increase their income during a busy tourist season.

Bangladeshi expatriates in some European counties, especially in Italy, find themselves in a precarious situation amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, with many of them left with no jobs and stuck at home without adequate supply of daily essentials.

He went to oil-rich Kuwait as a low-paid migrant worker about a decade ago to change his fortune, with dreams to return to the country to enjoy his sunset years. But like hundreds before him, Md Kalam’s dreams remained unfulfilled.

Saudi Arabia is planning to abolish its controversial sponsorship system, known as kafala, amid economic reforms and frequent allegations of labour exploitation in the Gulf country.

Around 5,600 undocumented Bangladeshi migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have applied for their repatriation under a special exit programme.

Some 470 Bangladeshi migrant workers are set to return home this week from crisis-hit Lebanon, following applications for repatriation under a special programme announced by authorities. Many of them are desperate to return home, said officials and migrant workers living in the Arab country.

Bangladesh is set to hold talks with one of its major labour receiving countries Qatar today and tomorrow with a hope to see rise in hire of Bangladeshi migrant workers by the Gulf country.

The government is going to identify “outstanding” recruiting agents based on their track record under a new monitoring mechanism -- aiming to efficiently promote human resource export.