DHAKA: A Bangladeshi worker died in a air strike in Lebanon, Dhaka’s foreign ministry said Sunday, as the Israeli bombardment hampered efforts to repatriate citizens.
The foreign ministry estimates that between 70,000 and 100,000 of its nationals are working in Lebanon, many as labourers or domestic workers.
The first flights, organised by Dhaka’s government with the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, brought home scores of Bangladeshis from Beirut last month.
Mohammad Nizam, 31, was killed on Saturday afternoon in a reported strike as he stopped at a coffee shop on the way to work in Beirut, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Lebanon, Javed Tanveer Khan said in a statement.
Mohmmad Jalaluddin said his younger brother Nizam had lived in Beirut for more than a decade, and had not been among the estimated 1,800 Bangladeshis who had registered for an evacuation flight home.
“We want to bury him in our ancestral home, and are now waiting for the government’s response,” Jalaluddin told AFP.
But senior Bangladeshi foreign ministry official Shah Mohammad Tanvir Monsur said it was challenging to arrange a flight into Beirut.
“With the ongoing war, there are hardly any flights from Lebanon to Bangladesh,” Monsur said.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to repatriate our citizens who have registered to return home.”
Israel drastically escalated its air campaign against Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in September, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
It has since launched a ground offensive intended to push the group back from its northern border.
Hezbollah has been firing thousands of projectiles into Israel over the last year, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis.
The war has killed at least 1,930 people in Lebanon, since it began on September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely higher due to data gaps.
Israel’s military says 38 soldiers have been killed in the Lebanon campaign since it began ground operations on September 30.
