Bahrain blaze kills two workers

Two illegal Bangladeshi labourers were killed in Bahrain yesterday when a fire swept through their cramped accommodation in central Manama.

The Interior Ministry's Civil Defence Directorate said the workers were asleep when the fire broke out at around 5am. Sixteen other Bangladeshi men who lived in the small three-bedroom flat managed to escape.

Marietta Dias of the Migrant Workers Protection Society (MWPS) said the tragedy comes as no surprise following a spate of similar blazes.

“This has been going on for years, but in the last three months there have been five or six fires in labour camps and these types of places,” she said.

“It was only a matter of time before more people died like this.”

Dias said MWPS had arranged for the survivors to be served food from a local restaurant but had had no direct contact with them as the men are all presumed to be illegal workers and fearful of being caught.

The Labour Ministry said the building was not registered as a labour camp and an investigation into who was responsible for the workers and the building was underway.

Dias said the landlord should be brought to justice, but she doesn’t expect to see a reduction in the number of labour camp fires any time soon.

“These people are living in very poor conditions and to clean it up is a huge task,” she said.

“Is the government willing to go and inspect all of these places and then what will they do with all these people? How will they accommodate them?

“I don’t think the government is very keen to start that process.”

In October three Bangladeshi workers were killed and seven injured when a fire destroyed their home in Jidhafs. Twenty-two construction workers lived in the four bedroom house.

In July 2006, a three-story building in Manama which housed 300 construction workers was destroyed, killing 16 Indian workers.