159 Bangladeshi brought back from Myanmar

A total of 159 Bangladeshi human trafficking victims, who were rescued by Myanmar's Navy, were brought back to Bangladesh this afternoon.

They were brought back through the Bangladesh-Myanmar Friendship bridge at Ghunghun point around 1:00pm after a flag meeting of Border Guard Bangladesh and their Myanmar counterpart, said Lieutenant Colonel Md Robiul Islam, commander of 17 BGB Battalion of Cox's Bazar.

An 18-member BGB team went to Myanmar and held the one and a half hour-long meeting in Myanmar's Border Guard Police (BGP) camp at Dekubunia in Maungdaw since 11:30am, reports our Cox's Bazar correspondent.

Of the 159 Bangladeshis, 80 people are from Narsingdi, 18 from Chittagong, 12 from Narayanganj, 12 from Faridpur, three from Shariatpur two from Naogaon and two from Natore and Barisal.

The Bangladeshi victims, that include 16 children, were among 208 and 727 people who were rescued by Myanmar navy on May 22 and May 29 respectively.

Earlier on July 30 and August 5, the victims were scheduled to be brought back but the programmes were postponed due to bad weather triggered by cyclone Komen and flood and other reasons.

Till now, 342 identified Bangladeshi victims have been repatriated from Myanmar.