'He was supposed to be home Friday, never heard his daughter passed SSC': Wife mourns Saudi fire victim

For six years, Shyamal Uddin Majhi has been in Saudi Arabia, working to support his wife and three daughters back home.

He was finally due to return to his home in Rajshahi's Bagmara on Friday (14 August).

But he never made it.

The 42-year-old migrant worker was killed in a fire at a sofa manufacturing factory in the Musa Sanaiya industrial area of Riyadh yesterday (9 August), leaving his family devastated and waiting for his body to be brought home.

"Next Friday, he was supposed to come home. He had planned to return and arrange the marriages of our two daughters," his wife Rashida Begum told The Business Standard at their home in Marugram of Jhikra union today (10 August).

Shyamal had another reason to look forward to returning home.

His second daughter, Sadia, passed her SSC examination from Jhikra High School with a GPA of 4 today. She was waiting to share the news with her father. He never heard it.

"My husband could not hear the good news. Our daughter was waiting to tell her father, but everything ended before she could," Rashida said.

The couple has three daughters. The eldest is married, while the other two are still studying. "Where will I go now with my three daughters?" Rashida wondered.

Shyamal, who has always been the family's sole breadwinner, left for Saudi Arabia on 7 December 2019 after taking out loans to finance his journey.

He spent the next six years abroad without returning home. This was supposed to be his first trip back to Bangladesh.

The plan was not simply to return home but to settle family responsibilities, including arranging the marriages of his two younger daughters.

Instead, the family is now trying to bring his body home.

Son-in-law Mizanur Rahman said he last spoke to Shyamal around 1:45pm on Sunday. Shyamal said he was preparing the documents needed for his return to Bangladesh. At one point during the conversation, he said he was going to sleep and ended the call.

Rashida called him again around 3pm, but there was no response.

Soon afterwards, the family learned that a fire had broken out at the factory.

Rashida last spoke to Shyamal around 3am yesterday. "When we called him later, we found the phone switched off. Later in the day, the news of the fire came, and we learned that he had died."

Mizanur said a Bangladeshi worker at the factory later told the family that he had invited Shyamal to go outside and have a cold drink shortly before the fire. Shyamal declined, saying he wanted to sleep for a while.

About five minutes later, the worker saw the factory catch fire, Mizanur said.

The death of Shyamal has left his family struggling to cope with the loss of their only breadwinner.

His family has urged the government to bring his body back to Bangladesh as soon as possible.

Rafiqul Islam, chairman of Jhikra Union Parishad, said Mizanur has already approached him with the request. "They want his body brought back quickly. The government should repatriate the body as soon as possible and hand it over to the family."

Bagmara Police Station Officer-in-Charge Touhidul Islam said police were maintaining contact with the family. "The upazila nirbahi officer and I will visit the deceased's home," he said.