Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has said 28,849 Bangladeshi workers will return home from the Middle East in next few weeks.
Briefing the media about the inter-ministerial meeting on the bringing back the Bangladeshi workers on Wednesday, the minister said that so far 3,695 Bangladeshis were repatriated.
“Many of these nationals were detained for illegal stay in those countries and some were stranded,” he added.
The minister mentioned that the government is committed to bring back all the Bangladeshis who want to return home. “There is no doubt over it,” he added.
The minister said that about 4,500 Bangladeshi workers are now detained in Kuwait.
“There are allegations of food crisis in the detention centres,” he said.
We have asked our mission there to ensure food supply to Bangladeshi workers.
The Kuwait government intended to send these Bangladeshis back by special flights and already 144 were deported.
From Saudi Arabia, around 4,262 Bangladeshi workers are scheduled to be deported in the coming weeks.
And Oman, Jordan, Iraq, UAE will also deport many Bangladeshi workers, he added.
Maldives will deport around 1,500 Bangladeshis of whom 400 will arrive on Thursday, the minister said.
Bangladesh has appealed to the Middle East countries not to terminate Bangladeshi workers for the next six months considering the plight of their family members, the minister added.
Momen said that the government is also planning to bring back the stranded Bangladeshis from different countries including Singapore, India, the UK and the USA.
We are trying to arrange special flights for them, he said.
Already 2,853 stranded Bangladeshis were repatriated from Singapore and India.
But he advised the expatriate Bangladeshis to try to stay in the host countries arguing that better opportunity might come for them after the passage of this crisis period.
The minister urged the expatriate Bangladeshis to maintain 14-day quarantine, or to take a Corona negative certificate from the local authorities before landing Bangladesh.
“If you cannot show such certificate, you have to undertake institutional quarantine on arrival” said the foreign minister.
The minister said, in a video conference held last week, he urged the NAM leaders to ensure that not a single migrant worker would die of hunger in host countries.
Bangladesh proposed to float a Covid-19 recovery fund to NAM and some international grouping for supporting distressed people, he added.
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