A total of 7500 Bangladeshis living in different foreign countries, including the worst coronavirus-hit Italy, have so far returned home in the last five days. Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan, director of the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at a regular press briefing made the disclosure on Friday.
Noting that the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) does not store passenger information, he said, “We have sought passenger information from the immigration department. Based on their information, we learned that 7500 passengers arrived in the country, of them, 80 percent are Bangladeshi expatriates. “Due to high body temperature, three passengers have been sent to Kuwait Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital in the last 24 hours. Of them, two arrived from Saudi Arabia while another from Malaysia”, he added.
As per the government direction, if any passenger is found with high body temperature, the airport authority directly sends them to the hospital, and quarantine is mandatory for them.
When asked whether the Army was taking charge of arriving passengers, he replied, no direction has yet reached the CAAB in this regard. If the authority makes such a decision, it will be implemented too. “Army will not stay inside the airport, and if authorized, they will receive passengers from outside of the airport”, he concluded.
