IOM and the Government of Bangladesh today signed an agreement to
provide Tk. 50,000 (USD 680) reintegration grants to some 36,500
Bangladeshi migrant workers forced to return home from Libya over
the past four months.

The agreement, financed by a USD 40 million World Bank loan to
Bangladesh signed in May, will also reimburse to IOM USD 12.6
million – the repatriation costs of 10,000 of the nearly
31,000 Bangladeshi workers that IOM flew home during the early days
of the crisis, mainly from Tunisia and Egypt.

The agreement was signed in Dhaka today by Dr. Zafar Ahmed Khan,
Secretary of the Bangladesh Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and
Overseas Employment (MEWOE) and Ms. Rabab Fatima, IOM Regional
Representative for South Asia, at a ceremony attended by MEWOE
Minister Mosharraf Hossain and representatives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the World Bank.

Payment of the grants is expected to start in mid July and IOM
will be responsible for establishing a database of all the
returnees, verifying their documents and transferring the money to
their banks, according to Ms. Fatima.

"IOM is currently finalizing the database and will be initiating
the verification and cash disbursement programme shortly. We will
also launch a mass information campaign explaining the programme
and set up a call centre to answer questions from applicants and
arrange appointments," she added.

Since late February, over a million people, including over
280,000 migrant workers from various countries have been forced to
flee the conflict in Libya. IOM has helped over 146,000 migrants to
return home from neighbouring countries, notably to Bangladesh,
Chad, Egypt, Ghana, Niger and Sudan.

For more information, please contact:

IOM Dhaka

Asif Munier

Tel: 01714114659

E-mail: "mailto:amunier@iom.int">amunier@iom.int

or

Sonia Sarder

Tel: +880.2.9889765

E-mail: "mailto:ssarder@iom.int">ssarder@iom.int