Libyan rebels pose no harm to Bangladeshis
Says evacuee surgeon
Stranded Bangladeshi workers at Choucha camp at Tunisia-Libya border hold a protest rally demanding their passports from the local authorities and immediate repatriation. Photo: Morshed Ali Khan
Libyan rebels in general are harmless to Bangladeshi expatriates, said a Bangladeshi chest surgeon, who safely managed to flee home from the Libyan political upheaval along with three nurses. The surgeon Dr Shahed, who worked at Shahat Chest Hospital, 230 kilometers to the east of Benghazi in Libya, was talking to journalists at a press conference at the foreign ministry yesterday. The sugeon and seven nurses were among the around three hundred Bangladeshi evacuees, mostly labourers, who returned home at midnight on Friday by a Biman flight, crossing the Egyptian border. Dr Shahed said he along with the three nurses drove 500 kilometres to reach Al Salloum in Egypt-Libya border. The rest of the nurses followed the same route. "I found around 225 Bangladeshis at a camp," said Shahed talking to The Daily Star later. "I decide to flee Libya in the early hours of Thursday, as I came to know that Gaddafi's forces would take over and bombard Tobruk town and reach Al Salloum around 10:30am," he said. A sense of insecurity following declaration of no-fly zone by western powers is also another major reason why Shahed decided to flee. Egyptian nationals, officials of International Organisation of Migration (IOM), Bangladeshi embassy in Egypt and some Bangladeshi students studying at Al Azahar University entertained the evacuees at Al Salloum camp. IOM arranged buses for the evacuees, who started from Al Salloum for Alexandria on Thursday evening and arrived on Friday morning. The Biman flight took off from Alexandria at noon. According to Shahed, who served in Shahat for one year, there are around 70 Bangladeshi nurses working within a 100-kilometre radius of Shahat but they have not faced any attacks by rebels. "The entire area of Shadat is under control of the Libyan rebels," he said, "But, as far as I know, they have not attacked any hospital, house or other institution." The rebels are friendly towards Bangladeshis, he said. The rebels stopped Shahed's vehicle at several check posts but let them go seeing Bangladeshi passports. The evacuees can safely flee Libya through Benghazi, as it is relatively safer to travel from Benghazi to Al Salloum, he said. It is rather more hazardous to travel from Tripoli to the Tunisian border.
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