322 US citizens leave Dhaka on chartered flight

A total of 322 US nationals – who were stranded in Bangladesh due to the Covid-19 pandemic – returned on a chartered flight on Sunday.

A Qatar Airways flight carrying the passengers left Dhaka for Dulles International Airport in the US state of Virginia in the evening.

Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan, director of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, told the media two dogs and a cat also boarded the flight that left at 5:58pm.

Most of the passengers are expatriate Bangladeshis living in the US permanently.

The flight will reach the US via Qatar, but the passengers will remain on the airplane in the Qatari capital, Doha.

On March 30, 269 US citizens stranded in Bangladesh left on another chartered flight.

Earlier, the US embassy in Dhaka said the American government was not forcing anyone to return.

This is a personal choice based on what US nationals are comfortable with, it said.

The embassy said this kind of arrangement was not only taking place in Bangladesh as the US Department of State had so far arranged special flights in 28 countries to take back nearly 10,000 American citizens.

On Thursday, the Japanese government took back 327 nationals from Bangladesh.

Also, some 354 Malaysian and Bhutanese citizens left Dhaka on three flights on March 26.

Of the three, two Drukair flights carried 124 Bhutanese nationals while around 230 Malaysians took a Malaysia Airlines flight.