Chartered flights to evacuate 555 Bangladeshis from Sudan: Shahriar Alam

The government is going to operate four chartered flights from Sudan sponsored by the state to evacuate 555 Bangladeshi citizens to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Three of the chartered flights will be operated Wednesday, while the fourth will be operated Thursday, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

Once they reach Jeddah, they will fly back to Dhaka as soon as possible.

"The Saudi government and other governments are assisting us in this matter. However, the expected pace of repatriation has been delayed. Therefore, we have made a decision to bring the Bangladeshi nationals back from Port Sudan to Jeddah on four chartered flights at our own cost," Shahriar Alam said.

He said the government has sent the required financial support for providing food to Bangladeshis who are waiting in Sudan.

Mostofa Jamil Khan, director (welfare) at the Consular & Welfare Wing, told The Business Standard, "Forty-six Bangladeshis are set to arrive in Jeddah on a special Badr Airlines flight from Port Sudan on Wednesday night, and are expected to fly to Dhaka on a Bangladesh Biman flight by Thursday afternoon."

On Monday (8 May), the government alongside the International Organization for Migration (IOM) successfully repatriated 136 Bangladeshi nationals in the first group from Sudan.

They were supported by IOM with air tickets through its internal emergency assistance funding mechanisms to travel from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Dhaka, Bangladesh with coordinated support from Biman Bangladesh Airlines.

Upon arrival, the returnees were provided with meals and onward transportation allowance of Tk3,000 from the Wage Earners' Welfare Board and Tk2,000 from IOM.

Earlier, Bangladesh Embassy in Sudan evacuated over 700 Bangladeshis from the capital Khartoum to Port Sudan on Tuesday (2 May). They were taken there by a total of 13 buses in two phases.