The Spanish government has yet to inform Bangladesh about a recent raid the Spanish police conducted on an alleged Bangladeshi-run trafficking ring in the European nation.
According to a statement issued by the Spanish police on Friday, 11 people were arrested in Barcelona in this connection.
It has been alleged that at least 350 people from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were smuggled in to the country by the ring.
The police said the gang first arranged entry visa to Algeria fraudulently, then the migrants were flown to Algeria, from where they crossed over to neighbouring Morocco by foot, and then were taken across the Mediterranean Sea to Spain via motorboats.
The Bangladesh government has yet to hear anything from its Spanish counterpart about the specific incident, officials concerned at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.
“We do not know the details of the incident yet. Having received the report from our ambassador in Madrid, we will see if there is anything that we can do,” said Kamrul Ahsan, secretary (bilatreal and consular) at the ministry.
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“We are always against irregular migration. We never want our people to live anywhere in the world as irregular migrants,” Kamrul said.
“We are doing all we can so people cannot use Bangladesh as a source country for human trafficking,” he added.
A senior official at the Foreign Ministry said: “The Spaniards have not contacted with our embassy in Madrid; neither has the Spanish Embassy in Dhaka gotten in touch with us.”
However, he said the ministry was expecting a report from the Bangladesh embassy in Spain.
A senior government official, requesting anonymity, told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday that this is nothing new in Spain, and this kind of migrant trafficking has been going on for a long time.
“People are paying Tk12-20 lakh to go to Spain. The journey to the European nation is extremely treacherous,” he added.
Since it is a transnational issue, many people from different countries are involved in human trafficking, he further said.