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Bangladeshis in Troubled Tikrit, Iraq

No steps taken for their protection

Staff Correspondent
The ongoing political turmoil in Iraq's Tikrit has put the lives of 27 Bangladeshi migrants, who took refuge in an under construction hospital building, at risk of harm.
The Bangladesh embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi employer are yet to provide them
with meaningful assistance to end their misery of living in constant fear of death for the last 16 days.
"We are in grave danger right now. We have been passing our days amid shortages of food and water,” said Sheikh Shaur Rahman Belal, one of the 27, yesterday. ”We have not received any assistance to get rid of this self-confinement,' Belal told The Daily Star over the phone.
All the 27 Bangladeshis, who used to work in the Iraqi company Al-Iskan, have been passing their days in an inhuman condition at the building since June 11.
Belal said they tried to go to a safer place near Irbil, a city of Kurdistan, but could not as the owner of their company took away their passports and heavy fighting was continuing in the area.
"Two days back, company officials assured us that they would first move us to Irbil and later send back to Bangladesh by seven or eight days. But we do not know what they can actually do for us," he added.
Contacted, Bangladesh ambassador to Iraq yesterday said the embassy officials had been trying to move the Bangladeshis to a safer place with the assistance of international agencies.
"We know they are unsafe. We have been communicating with their owner and the international agencies to arrange their safe passage soon," Maj Gen Rezanur Rahman Khan said.
■ But the city is still under the control of rebels and it is difficult to reach there," he told this correspondent over the phone.
Belal also said six other Bangladeshis, who were with them, were sent to another place in Tikrit by their company a few days back.
"We do not know how they are at present, as it has become difficult to communicate with them," he added.
Bangladeshi workers in Iraq's northern regions, including Tikrit, Mosul and Basra, are in serious trouble as Sunni rebels have been fighting the Iraqi government forces since June 5.
The Iraqi army yesterday launched an assault on the Sunni rebels in Tikrit. Fierce clashes began in the city after some helicopters landed near Tikrit's university campus.
At least one of the copters was downed by the rebels, according to Reuters.
With Sunni militants and rebels gradually moving in around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, there is a dramatic race going on between slow-moving efforts to defuse the crisis politically and rapid developments on the ground, reports BBC.