The number of Bangladeshi nationals stranded in the Maldives that have been repatriated thus far has surpassed 2,000.

A total of 2,153 Bangladeshi nationals have been repatriated thus far

The National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) revealed on Tuesday that 1,953 Bangladeshi nationals were repatriated by then out of which 342 were residing in the island nation legally.

Since then, another group of 200 Bangladeshi nationals were repatriated on Friday.

The country’s national airline, Maldivian revealed that a flight carrying 200 Bangladeshi nationals departed from Velana International Airport (VIA) to Dhaka on Friday morning.

Maldives has been repatriating groups of Bangladeshi nationals in the country, under a special evacuation programme launched earlier in May.

The programme was announced by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih during his address to the people, where he revealed that about 1,500 undocumented workers from Bangladesh will be repatriated.

Since then, over 2,000 Bangladeshi nationals have been sent back home in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Bangladeshi High Commission in Maldives.

This comes at a time a number of Bangladeshi nationals have tested positive for Covid-19 in the Maldives, the number currently sits at 1,018 which is 54.06% of the total case count.

The surging number of Bangladeshi nationals testing positive in the Maldives has been a rising concern, with authorities classifying them as vulnerable to the infection due to their lifestyles and the confined spaces they are forced to live in large groups.