Seventeen out of the 68 Bangladeshis stranded off the coast of Tunisia will be returning to the country on Friday (Jun 21) night.
They will be brought back to Dhaka in a Qatar Airways flight, said a foreign ministry official wishing to remain anonymous.
He added that the rest of the 47 people will be gradually brought back.
“Those Bangladeshis are being brought back with the help of International Organization for Migration in Tunisia,” he said.
Tunisia allowed dozens of migrants, mostly from Bangladesh, to disembark after three weeks stranded in the Mediterranean, so that they can return to their home countries.
They were on their way to Europe from Libya when the engine of the boat broke down. An Egyptian boat later rescued the migrants in Tunisian waters last month.