Sailors on their way home

The 28 Bangladeshi crew members, rescued from a ship that was attacked at a Ukrainian port, were being brought back home.

"They will be brought back at the earliest," Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told reporters at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.

Last night, an official of the Bangladesh embassy in Romania told The Daily Star that the Bangladeshis were evacuated from Ukraine yesterday, and they were scheduled to reach Romania today.

The Banglar Samriddhi, owned by Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, came under attack on March 2 night. Third engineer Hadisur Rahman, one of the 29 crewmen, was killed in the attack.

The ship had been anchored in Ukraine's Port Olvia since February 23.

Russia has regretted the death but said the Russian side was not behind the attack. However, it said it would determine the circumstances and let Bangladesh know.

On Thursday, the 28 crewmembers and the body of Hadisur were transferred to a safe place in Ukraine. They were initially supposed to be transferred to Poland, but the authorities later decided to take them to Romania and then to Bangladesh.

Hadisur's body, kept in a refrigerator in Ukraine, will be sent to Bangladesh at a convenient time later, said an official of the Bangladesh embassy in Poland.

Foreign Minister Momen said the government was verifying a video clip of five Bangladeshis, who claimed that they were stranded at a camp there and being used as human shields by the Ukrainian soldiers.

Meanwhile, some 600 Bangladeshis were evacuated to Poland, but others were still in some pockets of Ukraine, officials said.

Momen said Dhaka was in talks with the Indian embassy in Ukraine for their rescue.

Asked about Bangladesh's neutral position at the UN General Assembly voting on a resolution that reprimanded Russia, he said Dhaka continues to have the same stance.

"We want peace, stability. If there is instability anywhere, we will also be affected."

He said Bangladesh is deeply concerned over the war in Ukraine and wants a solution to it through dialogues.