Despite the International Organization for Migration on Saturday saying that 1.45 million people have already fled Ukraine since the fighting began, a number of Bangladeshis are still stuck in the ex-Soviet nation and seek help for leaving it.
According to media reports, there were around 700 Bangladeshis in Ukraine as of February 28, and more than 500 Bangladeshis managed to enter Poland, Hungary, Moldova, and Romania by March 2.
Some 10 Bangladeshi nationals were in the Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Sumy as of Saturday afternoon, reports bdnews citing Bangladesh’s ambassador to Poland.
Of them, two were in the port city of Mariupol and the rest in Sumy, a town 40km from Ukraine’s northeast border that has been battered by days of shelling by Russian forces.
Attesting to the fact, InfoMigrants, a news website for migrants, on Friday reported that many Bangladeshis were stuck in Ukraine and feared for their lives.
Without specifying the number, it claimed to have spoken to some of those, who had been given deportation orders and were at detention centers.
Bangladesh Ambassador Sultana Laila Hossain told the media outlet that 532 Bangladeshi citizens left Ukraine as of Wednesday morning.
“Some others also left in the past two days (Thursday and Friday). I am yet to get the total figure," she said.
Meanwhile, in a relieving development, Russia on Saturday announced a ceasefire in Mariupol and neighbouring Volnovakha.
Officials said on social media that the city's 450,000-strong population could begin to leave by bus and private cars.
Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko, however, said: "This is not an easy decision, but, as I have always said, Mariupol is not its streets or houses. Mariupol is its population, it is you and me."
An aid worker in Mariupol for Doctors Without Borders said: "Last night the shelling was harder and closer. We collected snow and rainwater yesterday (Friday)... We tried to get free water today but the queue was huge."
Call for help
Stranded in a detention center in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, Taher Ahmed (pseudonym) told InfoMigrants that they have been listening to the sound of bombing every few minutes from our room.
“There is a military airfield near our detention center. Russia has been trying to destroy it," he added.
Ahmed said he and another compatriot named Jahirul Islam are among nine migrants forced to stay in the center even after the war started more than a week ago. He also claimed that police had beaten them up when they tried to leave the camp last week to flee to Poland.
"Our life is at risk. Please help us to get out of here," Ahmed said.
In the Ukrainian town of Kivertsi, around a hundred migrants are staying at another detention center which was converted to a military base recently, according to Bangladeshi and Indian citizens who are detained there.
"Russia has been particularly bombing military bases. That’s why we have been living in constant fear of getting bombed. They have confined us here," Riadh Malik, a Bangladeshi migrant told InfoMigrants.
"We are among over a hundred migrants from countries including India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Arab countries."
No idea?
About the migrants in Mykolaiv and Kivertsi, the Bangladesh ambassador told InfoMigrants that she was not aware of them and that nobody informed her about them before.
"We have been trying to rescue Bangladeshi citizens who have contacted us or we were aware of. Anybody can contact us for help," she explained. She estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Bangladeshi citizens stayed in Ukraine before the war began.
"We are trying to take some Bangladeshi citizens to Russia from Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Kharkiv today as they are close to the Russian border," Laila said.
"Bangladesh embassy officials have also been roaming around the Poland-Ukraine border checkpoints to help citizens come to Poland,” she added.
