DHAKA, May 13, 2020 (BSS) – A total of 313 more stranded Bangladeshis
returned home from Bangalore and Chennai today while 169 Indians left here on
the same day for Srinagar by a separate chartered flight under the ongoing
repatriation drive conducted by the Bangladesh and Indian governments amid
flight suspension due to COVID-19 pandemic.
A ferry flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines landed at HSIA from South
Indian city of Bangalore at 6:40 pm today bringing back 144 Bangladeshi
citizens, spokesperson of the airlines Deputy General Manager (PR) Tahera
Khondokar told media.
Earlier, another chartered flight of US-Bangla airlines landed at HSIA at
3 pm bringing back 164 adults and five infants Bangladeshis from Chennai,
airlines sources said.
In the morning, a chartered flight of Air Indian took off from HSIA for
Indian city of Srinagar carrying 169 Indian citizens, mostly students, Indian
High Commission source said here.
On May 8, New Delhi started taking its nationals, who had been stuck here
amid lockdown due to outbreak of deadly coronavirus, back home planning to
run seven chartered flights from Dhaka by this week in the first phase of
repatriation.
After successfully evacuating more than 2000 stranded Bangladeshis from
India by ferry flights in two phases, Dhaka is now operating its third phase
of repatriation flight operation to bring the rest of its citizens home from
different Indian cities.
Apart from today’s flight, more chartered flights have been planned to
operate from New Delhi and Chennai to Dhaka through the national flag carrier
Biman as well as the US-Bangla Airlines under the third phase of repatriation
operation.
On Tuesday, Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi in a statement said so
far more than 3000 Bangladeshis returned home from India through both air and
land ports since the neighboring country declared nationwide lockdown there
to contain outbreak of coronavirus.
As per the government decision, all the returnee Bangladeshis would have
to be sent to a 14-day institutional quarantine under the management of the
Armed Forces Division (AFD) if they fail to show medical certificates at the
airports on their arrival here.
Besides India, Bangladesh also repatriated stranded Bangladeshis from the
UK, Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar while more chartered flights
have also been planned to bring back Bangladeshi nationals from the USA, and
Malaysia this week.
On May 5, Bangladesh extended the ongoing ban on flight operation for the
fifth consecutive time till May 16 to and from all European countries and the
nations including India that restricted the entry of Bangladeshis to their
territories as well as on all domestic routes over the coronavirus scare.
Other countries, including the USA, the UK, Canada, Turkey, Australia,
Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Bhutan, Myanmar, South Korea and Indonesia and
different European countries so far operated several special chartered
flights amid the flight suspension to repatriate their citizens from here.