The country’s national airline, Maldivian, has repatriated another group of Bangladeshi nationals from the Maldives.

As such, the repatriation took place on Wednesday afternoon, where a flight of the country’s national airline departed with 200 Bangladeshi nationals to Dhaka, Bangladesh from Velana International Airline (VIA).

This is the 31st repatriation flight of Bangladeshi nationals from the Maldives.

Maldivian revealed on Monday that a total of 5,733 have been repatriated thus far.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 4,500 undocumented Bangladeshi nationals have been repatriated from the Maldives.

During May, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced that the government will be repatriating thousands of Bangladeshi nationals living illegally in the Maldives, following which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Development collaboratively began a repatriation exercise.

The repatriation is part of the government’s efforts to evacuate volunteering expatriate workers from the Maldives, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

These efforts are being carried out in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bangladeshi High Commission in the Maldives, with the assistance from the Bangladeshi government.

Earlier, the Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail stated that the government aims to send back at least 20,000 undocumented workers prior to the end of the ongoing year. Fayyaz noted that expatriate workers will not be send back home, without their consent.

Close to 14,000 expatriate workers who volunteered to go back home under the government-initiated repatriation program, have been evacuated thus far.

Earlier, the government revealed that close to 100,000 undocumented workers are residing illegally in the Maldives without valid documentations and/or passports.

The state earlier announced that it is to begin imposing fines on expatriate workers residing in the nation without proper documentation such as the employer visa.