112 Bangladeshis stuck in Vietnam return home

One hundred and twelve Bangladeshis, who had been stranded in Vietnam, finally returned home by a chartered flight this afternoon.

A flight of US-Bangla carrying the passengers, including 107 Bangladeshi migrants, landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 4:00pm.

The other passengers are five Bangladeshi nationals, who were stuck in the country due to the coronavirus lockdown, and a Vietnamese, said a press release signed by Bangladesh Ambassador to Vietnam Samina Naz.

Md Raihan Uddin, a migrant worker from Cumilla, said they landed at the airport around 4:00pm. Raihan, who went to Vietnam in January this year, told The Daily Star around 5:30pm that law enforcers were collecting information about them.

Earlier, many of the 107 Bangladeshi migrants who faced exploitation in Vietnam travelled from Ho Chi Min City to Vietnam's capital Hanoi since early July and protested the exploitation against their Vietnamese employers and Bangladeshi brokers. They demanded immediate repatriation.

However, as international flights were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, there was no way to repatriate them immediately, officials said.

The Bangladesh embassy in Hanoi, in cooperation with Vietnam police, accommodated nearly 100 of them in several hotels. Later on August 4, the embassy issued a circular that other Bangladeshis who went to Vietnam for jobs, had cards issued by the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) and were willing to return home could register.

Following that, some Bangladeshis registered with the Bangladesh embassy for returning home. Eventually, the embassy charted the US-Bangla flight for sending them home.