Another group of 200 Bangladeshis repatriated from Maldives

Maldivian has repatriated an additional group of Bangladeshi nationals from the Maldives.

The country’s national airline revealed that a group of 200 Bangladeshi nationals departed from Velana International Airport (VIA), bound to Dhaka, Bangladesh on Friday afternoon.

This is the 33rd evacuation flight for Bangladeshi nationals stranded in the Maldives due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

A total of that 5,933 Bangladeshi nationals had been repatriated from the Maldives by August 19, the airline earlier revealed.

The authorities began battling the Covid-19 pandemic at a time the issue of undocumented Bangladeshi nationals living illegally in the Maldives had been a rising concern. Maldives Immigration earlier 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.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over 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. This comes at a time thousands of them have tested positive for the infection.

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, Minister of Economic Development 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.