KIGALI, Dec 31 – Rwandan authorities are working with counterparts in Dhaka to deport 64 Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking, after the arrest in Kigali of their suspected trafficker, police said Friday.
Abdul Sattar Miah was arrested on Monday night in a hotel in the capital, in possession of the passports of his presumed victims, police spokesman Eric Kayiranga told AFP.
"Our immigration services are working with their counterparts in Bangladesh so that the victims can be sent back home," Kayiranga said.
Miah, also from Bangladesh, initially claimed the men, who arrived in Rwanda on Ethiopian Airlines via Dubai and Addis Ababa, were his relatives.
Miah arrived in Rwanda in October saying he wanted to set up a tourism company. He rented two houses in the capital, which he subsequently used to house his victims and which police raided after a tip-off.
Kayiranga said police were investigating the theory that the victims were being trafficked to Mozambique to work on farms set up there by white Zimbabwean farmers.
He said the men, aged approximately between 20 and 50, had paid for their own air tickets as far as Kigali and had also paid Miah between 1,500 and 1,700 dollars (1,100 and 1,300 euros) as a "facilitation fee" in exchange for the promise of "well-paying jobs".
Miah, who has been in police custody since his arrest, was arrested in Mozambique in 2006 for smuggling a group of Bangladeshis into that country via Madagascar, the spokesman said.
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