A total of 164 Bangladesh nationals, stranded in India due to travel restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, have returned home.
A special US-Bangla Airlines flight from the Indian city of Chennai landed at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 3:50pm on Monday, according to a top aviation security official at the airport.
The coronavirus tests of all of them, conducted in India, came back negative, said the airport’s health officer Dr Sajjad Shariar.
Earlier, the airport authorities decided not to allow anyone to enter the country without a valid medical certificate stating that they are Covid-19 negative, he said.
“Forty-six of them, along with their medical attendants, have been instructed to go on self-isolation while the others have been told to quarantine themselves at home after reporting to the deputy commissioner’s office in their own districts for further monitoring,” added Shariar.
Those who have been flown in on Monday were stuck in the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamilnadu, where they had gone for medical treatment.
US-Bangla Airlines has announced earlier it would operate eight special flights to bring back stranded Bangladeshis in India. The airlines said it would operate a flight daily between April 20 and April 25.
The repatriation of the stranded Bangladeshis has been possible due to the initiative of the Bangladesh government through the missions in India, said the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi.
For the time being, permission from the host government has been obtained to bring back sick and elderly people from Karnataka and Tamilnadu by air, it said.
Several flights are expected to operate in the next few days to transport Bangladeshis from Chennai to Dhaka, it added.
All the returnees will have to isolate themselves for 14 days, said foreign ministry officials.
The government is trying to bring back the Bangladeshis stranded in other Indian states gradually, said the high commission.
Around 2,500 Bangladeshis, including students, are stranded in different Indian cities due to the lockdown imposed by its government to limit the spread of coronavirus.