The government yesterday requested Saudi Arabia and other major labour-receiving countries to address the problems of Bangladeshi migrant workers desperately waiting to go back to their workplaces. The requests were made in a meeting between delegations of missions of Gulf countries and Malaysia and two Bangladeshi ministers at the state guesthouse Padma. "We have discussed [problems regarding] iqama and visa. We did not get any immediate result.

Mahbubur migrated to Bahrain in 2006 after borrowing a large amount of money and started borrowing again to run his family 14 years later. “Chances to go back to Bahrain are becoming slim as days pass. I don’t know what to do,” he said. Mahbubur is the only breadwinner in his family and facing hardship as he could not get any job in Bangladesh. Dreaming of a better future, Md Kabir Hossain, 32, a worker from Kaliakoir in Manikganj left for