Relatives block highway demanding safe return of expats in Libya

Angry relatives of Bangladeshi workers trapped in violence-hit Libya blocked Dhaka-Sylhet Highway at Bhairab Saturday, accusing the government of dragging its heels in rescuing them, report agencies. Police said hundreds of people demanding the swift return of the workers demonstrated in Bhairab blocking the highway for an hour before being peacefully dispersed. Traffic on the highway came to a halt as over 1,000 people put blockade at Jagannathpur point around 10am, causing a three-kilometre tailback, witnesses said. According to the demonstrators, over 1,000 people of the upazila work in Libya. The demonstrators also demanded that their relatives be brought back home, if necessary. They also threatened to go for tougher protest programmes if steps were not taken immediately to save lives of the relatives trapped in Libya. "They sought the prime minister's intervention to bring the trapped Bangladeshis back home safely from Libya," local police chief Shajahan Kabir told newsmen. There are about 60,000 Bangladeshis working in Libya, mostly low-paid contract workers in the construction industry. Government officials said they seeking to ensure the workers' safety but have no immediate plans to transport them home, unlike several countries including neighbouring India, which sent its first two planes Saturday to Libya to evacuate her workers. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said earlier in the week that the government was "closely monitoring the situation and trying to move the workers to safety" and that "evacuation was an option". Several hundred relatives also formed a human chain in front of the national press club Saturday to protest lack of government efforts to repatriate the workers. "My son told me by phone he has been without food for days. I appeal to the prime minister -- please bring him and all other Bangladeshi workers back home," a demonstrator told newsmen. Officials have said they are talking to the International Organisation for Migration about a possible evacuation, but that no plans or funding for the expensive operation has yet been agreed. Kabir Hossain, 24, a construction worker, told AFP Friday by telephone that he had been trapped in a camp in the Libyan desert, 400 kilometres (250 miles) from Benghazi, where he worked for a foreign engineering group. He said they were then moved out by his employer before being "abandoned in the middle of road".