9 more wait for returning home

Nine more Bangladesh nationals, who had been stranded in Al Hudaydah and Sana'a cities of strife-torn Yemen, reached African country Djibouti yesterday.

A total of 32 Bangladeshis, including the nine, are now staying in hotels of Djibouti, said SM Mahbubul Alam, counsellor at the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuwait.

Of them, 23 are men, four women and five children, he said, adding, “We have a plan to send all these people back to Dhaka by today or tomorrow by plane.”

Talking to The Daily Star last night, Mahbub said they got information that seven or eight more Bangladeshis had boarded a ship from the Aden seaport yesterday.

He, however, could not confirm when the Bangladeshis boarded. Nor could he say which ship they embarked.

Around 50 to 60 Bangladesh nationals are still waiting at the Aden port to get on a ship to go Djibouti, Mahbub said.

Emdadul Hossain, a Bangladeshi national who was at the port, told BBC Bangla Service yesterday that a group of 50 Bangladeshis went to the Aden seaport around 7:00am (Yemen local time) as they came to know that an Indian ship would take them to Djibouti. But they were still waiting at the port as of filing of this report at 11:30pm.

The counsellor, who is now in Djibouti, also said three Bangladeshis, who earlier reached Djibouti, had left the African country for Dhaka three days ago.

“They flew on an Air India flight and might have reached Dhaka via Mumbai,” he mentioned.

Replying to a query about the evacuation of other Bangladeshis from Yemen to Djibouti, Mahbub said they were trying to bring the rest of the expatriates to Djibouti by air and water.

Another official said around 500 Bangladeshis, who remain stranded in Sana'a and Aden, communicated with Bangladesh officials for evacuation.

Maj Gen Mohammad Ashab Uddin, Bangladeshi ambassador to Kuwait, went to Djibouti on Tuesday to supervise the evacuation procedure of the stranded expatriates from Yemen.