A total of 164 Bangladeshi migrants, including nine who escaped a massacre of foreign workers in Libya, have returned home, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Bangladesh office said on Saturday.
Aboard a voluntary humanitarian flight from Libya, they arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Among the returnees were nine survivors of the tragic Mizdah incident in Libya, in which 30 migrants, including 26 from Bangladesh, were shot and killed in a smuggling warehouse, in May.
"I can't forget the incident; it was like living a nightmare. I was shot and it took me four months to recover enough to make the journey home," Syed Khan, one of the Midzah survivors, said in his account of the incident.
Some of them, he pointed out, still have not fully recovered and "we are still traumatised". He, however, expressed his gratitude to the IOM and the government of Bangladesh for medical and other support to them in Libya and for arranging the flight home.
Thirty-nine of 100 vulnerable migrants, who were on the flight, have reported 'medical conditions', according to the IOM news release.
IOM medical escorts travelled with the migrants and on arrival, health teams were on the site to coordinate healthcare for migrants who will be in quarantine at the government facilities, provide referral support to specialised services, and provide follow-up support to migrants with chronic conditions.
Eligible migrants will receive reintegration support once they complete their government-mandated quarantine period, the release said, adding that follow-up care is particularly important for the migrants who experienced physical and psychological trauma while stranded in Libya.
The deadly attack in Mizdah, near the city of Gharyan, southwest of Tripoli, also left 11 other migrants critically injured and the IOM and its partners had supported the survivors in the subsequent months.
