Over 15,000 Bangladeshis in foreign jails now, parliament told

A total of 15,149 Bangladeshis have been detained or imprisoned in foreign jails, according to information released in parliament by the ministry of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 19 Nov 2017, 08:08 PM
Updated : 19 Nov 2017, 08:08 PM

In absence of Nurul Islam BSc, the minister, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed took the floor and informed the House on Sunday that of the total Bangladeshi detainees in foreign prisons, the highest 10,885 were in Saudi Arabia.

Bangladeshi prisoners in other countries are as follows:  UAE 977, Malaysia 810, Kuwait 384, Qatar 309, Libya 239, Oman 661, Greece 257, Italy 134, Maldives 124 and Iraq 115,

Singapore has 84 Bangladeshi in its jails, Japan 23, South Korea 27, Jordan 59, Egypt 4, Hong Kong 79, Thailand 1, and Mauritius 7.

According to the information provided by the minister, no Middle-East country has banned Bangladeshi workers, but the number of workers going to some countries dropped as those countries had already taken more Bangladeshi workers than they needed.

Bangladesh sent around half a million workers to Saudi Arabia between January and October this year – over 70,000 to Qatar, around 75,000 to Oman, 42,000 to Kuwait, nearly 18,500 to Bahrain, around 18,000 to Jordan, over 7,000 to Lebanon, and nearly 3,500 to UAE and Iraq each, the minister said.