Over 8,000 Bangladeshi nationals have been repatriated from the Maldives, through Maldivian.

The country’s national airline repatriated a group of 152 more Bangladeshi nationals from the country via a flight bound to Dhaka, on Wednesday.

Earlier, Maldivian revealed that 7,732 Bangladeshi passengers had been evacuated on these repatriation flights by October 14.

This is the 42nd repatriation flight carried out by the airline since the repatriation exercise began, after being prompted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, after thousands of Bangladeshi nationals began testing positive for the infection. The repatriation is part of the government’s efforts to evacuate volunteering expatriate workers from the Maldives due to the pandemic.

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 exercise is 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 2020. Fayyaz noted that expatriate workers will not be send back home, without their consent.

The authorities began battling the global 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.