313 expatriate workers return from Kuwait

GBNEWS24 DESK//

A total of 313 undocumented Bangladeshi expatriate workers who have been kept at a detention center in Kuwait after getting a general amnesty there in the wake of deadly COVID-19 pandemic arrived here this evening by two separate chartered flights amid the ongoing flight suspension.

“A Kuwait Airways special flight first landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) at 8.00 pm carrying 185 Bangladeshi nationals while another 128 expatriate workers returned from Kuwait by a chartered flight of Jajeera Airways landed at 9:01 last night, HISA director Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan said.

This was the first batch of the deported Bangladeshi workers returned from Kuwait while earlier some other middle-east (ME) countries, including Saudi Arabia and Oman, sent Bangladeshis mostly undocumented expatriates along with some inmates after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic that forced to curtail jobs of migrant workers employed in the oil-rich nations.

The Kuwait government as like its neighboring countries also bore the cost of the chartered flights to send back the Bangladeshi nationals.

As per the government decision, after arriving here, all returnee workers would have undergone a medical checkup at the airport and to be sent to 14-day institutional quarantine under the Armed Forces Division (AFD) management.

The returnee expatriate workers received Tk 5,000 on arrival at the airport according to a government decision taken last month.