Between July 2017 and June 2022, Bangladesh received 17,871 dead bodies, 67.4 percent of which arrived from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, The Daily Star quoting WEWB (Wage Earners Welfare Board) annual reports, said.
Of the corpses, 5,666 arrived from Saudi Arabia followed by 1,913 from the UAE and 1,893 from Oman, The Daily Star said.
The six GCC countries together hired 76.3 percent of Bangladesh's total 1.6 crore outbound workers between 1976 and 2023, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training.
A multi-country study suggests alongside poor occupational health and safety practices, low-paid migrant workers in the Gulf region are exposed to a series of cumulative risks to their health, including heat and humidity, air pollution, abusive working conditions, psychosocial stress, hypertension and chronic kidney disease.
Many Bangladeshi migrant workers who died in the Gulf were at their young age, but there is a data deficiency on the underlying causes of the deaths, said Prof CR Abrar, executive director of RMMRU.