The Bangladesh mission in Bangkok has asked the government to immediately stop the flow of undocumented job seekers to Thailand.

After the recent death of a Bangladesh national in Thailand, the mission wrote to the Home Ministry and the Foreign Ministry to stop export of unauthorised manpower. Sources quoting embassy officials in Bangkok told the Daily Star that the undocumented labourers heading for Malaysia for a better Job end up being caught by Thai police and stay there as paupers.

The embassy informed the government about its helplessness and financial incapability in handling the cases of undoc-

umented Bangladeshis and sending them back home.

Some representatives of the Welfare Association of Repatriated Bangladeshi Employees (WARBE) visited an immigration detention centre in Bangkok recently to see the plights of 51 Bangladesh nationals detained there.

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Embassy officials briefed the representatives about the tragic fate of a young Bangladeshi in March. -

Syed Saiful Haque Asif and Anisur Rahman Khan. WARBE delegates, later told the Daily Star that one Monir Hossain Ibrahim was buried as an unclaimed person in Dhaka after he died of diarrhoea at a detention centre in Bangkok.

They said since the young man went to Thailand with a forged passport, his real Identity could not be revealed. Some fellow compatriots took him to be a man from Satkhira and the body was taken there accordingly. but none could confirm his identity.

Bangladesh embassy in Thailand did not have the funds to send the body back home. It had to seek assistance from Bangladeshis living in Bangkok to buy an air ticket for Monir Hossain.

Labour and Employment Minister MA Mannan told the Daily Star that he was not aware of any specific case of death but said "such things do happen."

If the home ministry and immigration department do not tighten their vigilance, people holding PC passports (passports with doctored photographs) would continue to be in trouble

abroad."

Mannan acknowledged the financial constraints Bangladesh missions abroad . face to send people back home.

However, official statistics show that the number of "fortune seekers” who want to try their luck in Kuala Lumpur via Bangkok has fallen substantially thanks to the economic recess in the South East Asian countries.

About 707 Bangladeshis, who carried either "PC passports" or other forged travel documents, were sent back home from Thailand in 1996. The number rose as high as 2.368 In 1997. The figure fell substantially to 595 in 1998. only 65 last year and 55. so far. this year.

While in Bangkok. WARBE representative Asif talked to some of the 51 Bangladeshis detained in immigration detention centre. Catholic Migration Commission, a non-govern-ment organisation, made arrangements for WARBE delegates to meet the ill-fated Bangladeshis there.

Asif said the people who he talked to mostly hail from southern districts of Satkhira. Jhenidah and Jessore. None could give the name of the recruiting agencies that lured them to Bangkok. All they

could say is the name of individuals. such as Suja Mian and Hashem Master.

Md. Noor Ali. president of the Bangladesh Association for International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA). claimed that none of his association members will indulge in such activities. He said some unlicensed and unscrupulous agents exploit the rural youth, taking advantage of the government indifference on the issue of PC passport.