Black_cats
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2010
- Messages
- 10,031
- Reaction score
- -5
EU for speeding up repatriation of undocumented Bangladeshis
Muktadir Rashid | Published: 23:36, Nov 10,2022
EU for speeding up repatriation of undocumented Bangladeshis
A visiting delegation led by European Union commissioner for home affairs Ylva Johansson at a meeting with home minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Thursday urged the government to speed up repatriation of undocumented Bangladeshis as...
www.newagebd.net
A visiting delegation led by European Union commissioner for home affairs Ylva Johansson at a meeting with home minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Thursday urged the government to speed up repatriation of undocumented Bangladeshis as per standard operation procedure signed in 2017.
‘They [EU delegation] appreciated our effort at repatriation process. But they want to speed up process as per the SOP signed between EU-Bangladesh,’ a senior official who attended the meeting told New Age.
The home minister could not be reached for his comment.
‘…She expressed appreciation for the progress on returning undocumented migrants and emphasised that this helps to increase opportunities for legal migration,’ Charles Whiteley, European Union ambassador to Bangladesh, told New Age.
Charles Whiteley wrote on his twitter that EU commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, arrived in Dhaka for a two-day visit and announced additional funding to the UNHCR for Rohingya refugees in Bhasan Char with the state minister for disaster management, Md Enamur Rahman MP, and the United Nations refugee agency.
Posting a photo without any issue related to the discussion, Ylva Johansson in her verified twitter handle wrote that she along with Bangladeshi home affairs minister unveiled a logo to celebrate 50 years of partnership between EU and Bangladesh.
She also called on prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
In September 2017, Bangladesh signed a standard operating procedure with the European Union on the modalities to take back unauthorised migrants from the then 28 member states of the bloc.
An EU-funded project is now underway on several issues for sustainable reintegration support aiming for 3,000 returnee migrants from Europe.
At least 2,503 returnees have received in-kind assistance through Prottasha project since 2017 while an NGO worker said that 500 plus Bangladeshis were repatriated under the SOP.
In 2016, the EU urged Bangladesh to repatriation of 80,000 Bangladeshis living illegally in EU member countries.
But by 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees data showed that Bangladeshis were among the top three nationalities to cross the Mediterranean Sea or land borders to reach European countries without valid documents in 2021.
As of December 31, 2021, the analysis of UNCHR’s one-year data showed that 7,577 or 10.9 per cent of 1,22,485 undocumented migrants were Bangladeshis.
A senior official at the Special Branch of police told New Age that a large number of Bangladeshis travelled to Dubai during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and many of them tried to travel to Europe because of the scarcity of jobs in the middle-eastern country.
As the number was increasing, the Special Branch on September 22, 2021 asked the immigration police posted to international airports to examine strictly the travel backgrounds of passengers intending to visit Dubai on tourist visas.
The Bangladesh officials said that the European Union also warned that the bloc would be harsh on Bangladeshis in the coming days.
