Fourteen Bangladeshis, including eight telecom engineers and three Brac officials, who have been stranded in Afghanistan, are making an effort to fly back home in a chartered flight today.

They were scheduled to fly back yesterday along with about 160 Afghan students of Asian University for Women in Chattogram, and had gone to the Hamid Karzai International Airport but went back to their residences just half an hour before the suicide bomb blasts that killed at least 72 Afghans and 13 US soldiers yesterday.

"Today, they are going to the airport again as they were asked to," said wife of one of the engineers.

"We are praying for their safe return home," she said, declining to be named.

Mahfuza Rownak, wife of telecom engineer Razib Bin Islam, told The Daily Star that she and other family members went to the airport in Dhaka on Tuesday and Wednesday as she was informed that they would return on those days.

"The blasts took place near the Kabul Airport just 30 minutes after they [Bangladeshis in Kabul] had left the airport as the flight was not ready," she told our correspondent today.

There were a total of 26 Bangladeshis known to be living in Afghanistan. The Taliban took control of the country on August 15 before the US could complete full withdrawal of its forces by August 31.

Of the 26, three Brac International officials were evacuated to Kazakhstan on August 22 under UN arrangements and two other Bangladeshis were evacuated to Qatar under US arrangements.

Thousands of foreigners and Afghans, fearful of Taliban rule, began fleeing the country since then creating a heavy crowd at the airport. The bomb blasts, meanwhile, complicated the situation.

The evacuation flights began their operations again today according to International media reports.

"We are making our highest efforts to get them back home at the earliest," said Brac in a statement today.