Coronavirus: UK launches first Bangladesh rescue flights

A Bangladeshi woman walks through a sanitization tunnel in DhakaEPA

Mobile sanitation tunnels have been placed around the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka

Britons in Bangladesh will be able to fly home on four repatriation flights this week - the first arranged from the country amid the coronavirus crisis - the Foreign Office has confirmed.

It said the flights from Dhaka to London will depart on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and next Sunday.

There will be a total of 850 seats, at a charge of £600 each.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said officials were working "around the clock" to get travellers home.

More than 2,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Bangladesh with 84 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. There have been some restrictions on movement within refugee camps and of aid workers in the country.

Robert Chatterton Dickson, the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, said arrangements are being made to help transfer a number of British citizens from the north-east city of Sylhet.

Domestic flights between Sylhet and the capital Dhaka will be included in the overall cost of the charter flights for those who require them.

British travellers in Bangladesh can book seats via a dedicated website.

'Keep flights running'

While the Foreign Office has already in recent days flown home thousands of people who were stranded in India and Pakistan, these are the first flights it has chartered from Bangladesh.

A further 17 return flights from India will run between 20 and 27 April while another 10 flights from Pakistan will depart between 21 and 27 April.

The Foreign Office had estimated between 300,000 and one million Britons were travelling abroad after the coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March.

Mr Raab said: "Since the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, we've helped more than a million British citizens return home on commercial flights - backed up by our work with the airlines and foreign governments to keep flights running.

"Our special charter deal with the airlines has enabled us to return thousands more. Now, I can announce the next 31 flights from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh which will get 7,000 more Brits safely back home."

More on this story