Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will send back Bangladeshis, serving in jails there, as a part of their move to free the prisons to help control further spread of coronavirus epidemic, officials said.
To this effect, Kuwaiti government has recently sent a list of 147 Bangladeshi detainees to the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment (EWOE), said an official concerned.
Besides, the ministry also received a list of 209 detainee Bangladeshis from the UAE. The workers are expected to return home from the country.
When asked, the official said they have already started a process to bring back the Bangladeshi nationals from Kuwait. After bringing them home, the workers will be kept in quarantine as part of formal clinical procedure.
Apart from Kuwait and the UAE, Bangladesh is under pressure to bring back its undocumented migrant workers and detainees from the Maldives, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, officials said.
According to them, thousands of Bangladeshi nationals have been in those countries as undocumented workers.
However, an inter-ministry meeting, chaired by EWOE Minister Imran Ahmad at Probashi Kalyan Bhaban in the capital on Sunday, discussed various issues related with these migrant workers.
Among others, Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan attended the meeting.
The government decided to repatriate the Bangladeshi workers from some countries due to coronavirus outbreak, the meeting was informed.
The home minister told the meeting that the Bangladeshis will be repatriated after scrutiny of their identity, and they will be quarantined following their return.
The foreign minister told reporters that they received requests from some countries to repatriate irregular Bangladeshi workers, and those people will be brought back.
So far, 99 Bangladeshis in 11 countries died of COVID-19 infection. Over 10 million Bangladeshis are currently staying abroad, sector insiders said.
