The Babgladeshi Daily Star reported - Opens in new tabtoday about a group of Bangladeshi workers in Libya who have been living without work, salaries and facilities for months.
The group of at least 46 workers arrived in Libya in April 2009 to work in construction. Each spent over $2,900 to get the opportunity to earn a better living in Libya. The workers were promised a salary of 360 Libyan Dinars ($290) per month for an eight-hour work day, but only given 230 ($185) for 11-hour work days for the first two months. After the first two months, they were given little sums of money and food. In November, this stopped too. The workers stopped being called to work, not given salaries or even food.
Since then, the workers have been living out in "a shabby abandoned camp with no sanitation and facilities", according to one of the workers. The workers look for day jobs on the black market, trying to survive. On days when they can't find work, they go hungry and sometimes boil leaves for food.
The family of one of the workers said that her husband isn't sending back any money, but the interest on the sum he borrowed to be able to work in Libya is "going up every day". The Bangladeshi embassy in Libya approached the Labour Ministry, but there's no solution in sight for those stranded workers.