The war between Israel and Iran has spilt into Lebanon. With Israel carrying out sustained strikes, the fallout has cost hundreds of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Lebanon their jobs and homes. Large groups, many of whom are women, now live in the open in southern Lebanon, exposed to the rain and cold. Some have seen their workplaces destroyed in missile strikes. They are owed back pay and are left without work. Compounding their misery is the constant threat of air or missile strikes.
Since the wider confrontation between Iran and the US–Israel forces engulfed Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens and many Bangladeshi expatriate workers there have lost their homes and livelihoods. An estimated 100,000 Bangladeshi nationals are currently in the war-torn country. Many worked in Hezbollah-controlled areas of the south, the primary target of Israeli strikes. Thousands have moved to relatively safer locations. But those without money or shelter are now in open fields or on the streets, caught between the elements and the constant threat of the next strike.
Bonik Barta recently contacted a group of 25 such Bangladeshis in the Al Asad area of Siyah in the south. Stripped of their livelihoods and housing by the escalation, the group sought the precarious safety of an open field. Their situation is indicative of a broader crisis; hundreds of others remain similarly stranded across southern Lebanon. To escape the airstrikes, they chose an open field as a safe haven. Others are staying on roadsides or under trees. Some have moved on to the relatively safer northern part of the country.
The 25 expatriates contacted by Bonik Barta at the site in Al Asad have all been long-term residents of Lebanon. Rumu Aktar, who has lived in the Siyah area for 16 years, described the terror of their current existence. “We’re out in the field now because we can’t go inside,” she said. “Nowhere is safe. Everyone’s work has stopped; not a single person has a job. There’s no arrangement for food. All this war, and no one asks after us, no one gives us any food. What one person gets to eat is shared among ten. If we eat one meal, we have to go without the next two. It’s the rainy, cold season here. There’s an empty field. We all sit there together. When the fighting starts, we run. When we think it’s calm enough, we come back. We just keep moving up and down the road like this.”
She added, “They tell us that if there’s fighting, we should go to another area. But if people have no money, no help, which area can they go to? In the 2024 war, my hand was broken. I got no help. I had to borrow money to have my operation in this country.”
Bedena Aktar, originally from Kishoreganj, used to work in the Dahieh district in the southern suburbs of Beirut. “After the war started, I left my workplace and came to the Siyah area,” she told Bonik Barta. “There are about 25 of us expatriates here. A few are men. During the day we wander around different places nearby, and at night we all huddle together and sit in the open field. There was shelling last Sunday night, and there was rain and cold. It’s very difficult here. But we can’t even go anywhere else.”
Noorjahan from Manikganj said, “There’s no one here. The shops are closed too. We bathe once every three or four days. There’s no proper food. What little food one person gets, several share.”
Escape is a luxury few can afford. “We don’t have the means to stay in safe areas,” Noorjahan said, noting that without income, even a single room is out of reach.
In the early days of the war, a strike triggered panic in the Dahieh district of Beirut. Brahmanbaria’s Ekhlasur Rahman, who worked at a restaurant there, was on night duty. Moments after an explosion near the restaurant, he fled for his life, leaving his job behind. He collected his wife and newborn child and they left the area in the dead of night. They took refuge about 20 to 25 kilometres away from Dahieh.
Ekhlasur told Bonik Barta that the building owned by his employers was destroyed in a rocket attack, and he was not paid on time. He is owed approximately $1,200 in back pay. That money would have sustained his family for a few months. As it is, he, along with his wife and child, does not even have the essential clothes they need. He now faces a precarious future, haunted by the uncertainty of his family’s survival.
Barek Hasan, a cleaner at a Mazda dealership, said he is now spending his days and nights under a tree. His wife is staying elsewhere with a group of Bangladeshi women workers. Describing his situation to Bonik Barta, Barek said he has not been able to sleep in a house for 15 days. “They threw us out of our house in the Siyah area. Now we live on the street under the open sky. There’s heavy rain and cold. I slept in a mosque for two days. My wife is staying somewhere else with some Bangladeshi women. We have nowhere to go, and house rents are too high. Even if a missile falls a kilometre away, everything shakes.”
The number of Bangladeshis in southern Lebanon has plummeted, according to Mohammad Anwar Hossain, first secretary (labour) at the Bangladeshi Embassy in Beirut. He told Bonik Barta: “Information indicates expatriates have been displaced from various areas. Most Bangladeshi workers in the south are employed on agricultural farms and in private homes. Because the attacks have been largely concentrated on a few urban centres, those who worked in more remote areas are still widely scattered.”
“We are advising those who have contacted us to move to safer locations towards Beirut, and we are also arranging transport for them,” he said. “But many are unwilling to leave, preferring to stay in familiar surroundings to see how the situation develops.”
On the issue of shelter and food for the displaced, Anwar Hossain said local authorities have set up shelters in various places, but Bangladeshis do not feel comfortable there. Due to differences in food and culture, they prefer to stay close to the familiar Bangladeshi community. “Whenever we receive information about food shortages or other problems in any location, we’re sending mobile teams to track them down and reach them. We’re also coordinating with local NGOs and authorities. But with roads extremely dangerous to travel on during the war, it’s not possible to reach every area equally.”