Special flights to Saudi, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Singapore amid lockdown
Dhaka: The government is soon going to launch special flights from Bangladesh to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Singapore amid the ongoing lockdown.
The announcement came after an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by the foreign secretary today.
About 20 thousand the Middle East bound immigrant Bangladeshi labours who came back to Bangladesh on emergency leave are currently stuck in the country, unable to return to their respective work destinations due to the total flight suspension amid the strict lockdown, announced Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh and Association of Travel Agencies of Bangladesh at a press briefing on April 13.
If they are not repatriated immediately, their visas might get expired. And due to the resurgence of the virus globally, they might not get new visas any time soon either.
Ultimately, the foreign countries relying on immigrant Bangladeshi labours would look elsewhere for recruitment and Bangladesh would lose millions of foreign remittances.
Thus, the government has decided to pay heed to the matter and announced to launch special flights to repatriate the labours back to their respective countries.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh will give out the details in a notice on April 15.
Nevertheless, outbound passengers must possess corona negative certificates taken 72 hours prior to departure to be eligible to fly. And the recruiting agencies of those immigrant Bangladeshi labours will be responsible to drop them off at the airports amid the lockdown maintaining all health guidelines.
Immigrant Bangladeshi workers residing in the Middle East and Singapore can also come back to the country on the return flights but in case of emergencies only with passes collected from the concerned Bangladesh missions in the respective countries and corona negative certificates. But upon arrival in Bangladesh, they will be subject to the 14-day institutional quarantine either at a government facility or government approved hotels.
