Escape, at last
Returning to Bangladesh was not an option for him as he had repaid only half the loan he took from relatives and neighbours before leaving for Libya one and half years back.
Mohammad Rubel, 22, the only bread earner of a four-member family of Manikpur in Noakhali, however, returned home dead as he drowned after jumping from a ship at Hania Port in Crete Island on March 6.
With him, bodies of 13 more Bangladeshis, who jumped from the ship hoping to swim to an island in Greece and get a job, were recovered and sent back.
Nine out of the 10 bodies, which arrived in Dhaka early this week, were kept in Sir Salimullah Medical College Morgue and handed over to family members on Tuesday. Many relatives of those missing in Libya came to the morgue but could not identify the remaining body till yesterday.
“We are now getting on a ship as our company officers are sending us back to Bangladesh,” said Rubel to his uncle over phone for the last time from Libya on March 5.
Rubel, who used to drive a minibus in Noakhali, owed Tk 2.5 lakh. “It would have been very difficult for Rubel if he returned home without bringing enough money to pay the loans,” said Rubel's uncle Masud Parvez Azad, who came to the morgue yesterday to receive the body.
Eldest among three brothers, Rubel was bearing the cost of his family since his father died ten years ago, said. “The entire family depended on Rubel's income. Now, only God knows how the family will go on,” Azad said.
Mohammad Hazrat Ali, additional director general of Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training, said Tk 35,000 was provided to each family for the funeral.
He said they would run DNA examination if necessary to identify the body that left in the morgue till Tuesday.
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