Bangladeshi worker killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon

A Bangladeshi migrant worker was killed in an Israeli air strike in war-torn Lebanon's capital Beirut on 2 November.

The deceased, Mohammad Nizam Uddin, 31, was from Brahmanbaria's Kasba upazila.

He is the first Bangladeshi to be killed in an air strike in Lebanon.

Nizam Uddin went to Lebanon some 12 years ago as a migrant worker but didn't get the job he was supposed to when he reached the country.

He had already borrowed Tk7 lakh to go to Lebanon.

Struggling to find a stable source of income, Nizam opted to do any job he could get his hands on, which effectively turned him into an illegal migrant worker in the war-torn country.

The 31-year-old man, the youngest son of the family, was killed during an Israeli air strike at a coffee shop in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, on Saturday.

The release from the Bangladesh Embassy in Beirut says Nizam was on his way to work when the air strike took his life.

Family members, however, say the cafe where he died was his workplace.

"Nizam could not return home amid war and Israeli air strikes due to no longer having valid documents," says Sayera Begum, Nizam's elder sister.

"Despite limited earnings, he managed to build a small tin-shed house for our mother six months before she passed away," she adds.

Nizam's family received the news of his death last night via his friends.

The family, still processing the grief of losing its youngest son, only wants his body back now. "We urge the authorities to expedite the process of bringing Nizam's body home," Sayera says.

Muhammad Shahriar Moktar, upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) of Kasba, says they already contacted the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment.

"Nizam's body will be brought back to Bangladesh as soon as the situation in Beirut stabilises," he confirms.

Amid the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, 268 Bangladeshi nationals safely returned from Lebanon to Bangladesh as of 31 October.