Doctors Forced to Work in Camps, Bangladesh Says
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Iraqi troops have rounded up about 2,000 Bangladeshi doctors, engineers, teachers, electricians and drivers in occupied Kuwait and forced them to work in military camps, a Bangladeshi official said Sunday.
Acting Foreign Secretary Mustafizur Rahman said that treatment of the group, among 15,000 Bangladeshis still trapped in the emirate, runs counter to an earlier assurance by Baghdad that no Bangladeshis would be stopped from leaving.
He also said Iraqi employers have refused to allow about 15,000 Bangladeshis to leave Iraq on the ground that they must complete work contracts ranging from three to five years.
About 25,500 Bangladeshis out of 75,000 have returned home from Kuwait since Aug. 2, and another 34,000 are waiting in desert camps in Jordan and Turkey for mercy flights home.
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