Dhaka/Dubai/Kuala Lumpur: Several thousand Bangladeshi migrant workers in the Middle East, Italy and some Southeast Asian countries are facing acute shortage of food and other essential commodities as their income sources remained shut amid shutdown enforced by the countries to contain coronavirus spread. The Middle East and Southeast Asian countries include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei and Malaysia.

Against this backdrop, the Bangladesh missions in those countries have come forward with food assistance after being instructed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said sources at the mission offices.

Golam Moshi, Bangladeshi ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the prime minister asked the foreign ministry to extend support to Bangladeshi expatriates in different countries.

As per the instruction, the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry has so far allocated about Tk 4.5 crore, he told this newspaper over phone on Wednesday.

The Saudi embassy received about Tk 80 lakh from the allocation and bought food packages for 1,000 Bangladeshis living in Riyadh and Jeddah, he said.

With each package a person would be able to survive for 20 days, Moshi said, adding the Saudi mission would gradually extend the food assistant initiative to other major cities in the Gulf country.

The ambassador said the mission already circulated on its social media page a notice about the food assistance initiative and asked those are in need to submit their iqama numbers along with locations so that the mission officials can reach them in person and provide them with the food packages.

As of Wednesday, some 1,600 Bangladeshi migrant workers sought food assistance via social media, Moshi added.

Besides, the Saudi government informed the mission that they would not impose any restriction for the undocumented workers from getting the assistance, he further said.

Moshi, also Bangladesh's permanent representative to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said he was informed that Bangladesh missions in Jordan, Kuwait and UAE have undertaken similar initiatives to help several thousand Bangladeshi migrant workers in those countries.

Besides, local Bangladeshi communities in those countries have also come forward to help the migrant workers, he added.

"Although it is a big challenge to reach the food assistance to the Bangladeshi workers amid current situation, the missions are trying their best to help the workers," he added.

Italy is one of the hardest hit countries of coronavirus pandemic while cases of the virus infection in many Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries are also on the rise.

Following the Covid-19 outbreak, the authorities in some of the countries took some unprecedented measures to contain the virus transmission.

The measures included curfew, countrywide shutdown, ban on commercial passenger flights, closure of land borders, suspension of on-arrival and tourist visas and ban on cruise ship docking.

Some of these countries have also deployed security forces to strictly enforce law, aiming to preventing unwanted movements of citizens.

Bangladesh also took some precautionary measures to contain the virus transmission.

Talking with this newspaper on Wednesday, Sheikh Mohammed Tauhidul Islam, labour welfare counsellor at Bangladesh embassy in Bahrain, said many Bangladeshis were facing food shortage and the mission was trying reach them door to door to provide with food and other essential commodities.

The Bangladesh mission in Manama has already reached about 150 Bangladeshi expatriates in two days and provided them with rice, lentils, vegetables and other essentials like face masks and hand sanitizers, he told this newspaper over phone.

Tauhidul also said they were expecting to reach about 2,000 to 3,000 Bangladeshis living in Bahrain throughout the month of April with food and other essentials.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh mission in Rome have floated a notice on social media on Wednesday that it received applications from 600 Bangladeshis living in the Mediterranean country for food assistance.

The mission received Tk 25 lakh from the wage earners' welfare board of expatriates' welfare ministry and was working to provide food assistance to the 600 applicants with spending the allocated money, it said.

Expatriates' Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad on April 5 said that the ministry allocated about Tk 4.5 crore as per demands from Bangladesh missions abroad as they had undertaken all kinds of safety measures for expatriate Bangladeshis currently living abroad including food and medical treatment.

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