Over 15,000 undocumented workers have been sent back from the Maldives.

Deputy minister at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Maryam Nazima revealed this during RaajjeTV’s “Fala Surukhee” programme on Saturday night, stressing that these are “voluntary repatriations”. She did not disclose an exact number.

However, Nazima noted hindrances to their work, especially the fact that most of them lack required documents.

Further highlighting “travel challenges”, she said that they are now conducting one flight per week, unlike the two flights conducted amid lockdown.

Nazima also said that most of those signing up for the voluntary programme are Bangladeshi nationals, and added that some are sent back via flights traveling to the neighbouring nation.

The voluntary repatriation programme is being run by the Maldivian government in collaboration with the Bangladeshi High Commission in Maldives.

In addition, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is conducting a regularization programme, also as part of the work to resolve the issue of undocumented workers in the country. This programme was launched in September 2019.

Noting that around 5,000 people have been regularized under this, out of the over 40,000 individuals that have signed up, Nazima said that there are obstacles to this as well including systemic delays. While she noted the work was temporarily halted due to Covid-19 safety rules, she stressed that they were able to complete some procedures online.

Maldives Immigration earlier revealed that there is a total of 144,607 expatriate workers in the country out of the which over 60,000 are undocumented.