Maldives repatriates 200 more Bangladeshi workers

200 Bangladeshi workers in Maldives have been evacuated back to their home country.

According to the Foreign Ministry, they include 111 undocumented workers.

The workers were repatriated on board a chartered flight operated by the Maldivian Airlines on Tuesday morning.

Maldives as repatriated more than 1,000 undocumented Bangladeshi workers onboard chartered flights operated by the Maldivian Airlines, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, and the Bangladeshi Air Force since April 21.

At a National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) press briefing on Monday, spokesperson Mabrouq Azeez announced Maldives will be repatriating some 3,000 undocumented workers back to their home countries over the next three months.

Maldives has a population of close to 150,000 migrant workers, some 63,000 of whom are undocumented.

Most of the migrant workers in Maldives are Bangladeshis, and live in congested labor quarters which make them particular vulnerable to infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

The vulnerability of migrant workers is evident from records of COVID-19 cases released by the health authorities. Maldives has recorded 1,395 COVID-19 cases, and the number of Bangladeshi workers to get infected with the disease exceeds Maldivians at 706. One out of the four COVID-19 fatalities in Maldives is a Bangladeshi – a 33-year-old male.

The Director General of Public Health has ordered migrant workers in Male’ City who are vulnerable to getting infected with the disease to be moved to quarantine facilities. Hundreds have been moved to quarantine facilities in Hulhumale’ and Gulhifalhu, and the government is working on building additional quarantine facilities to house more migrant workers.