The crew of missile-hit ship Banglar Samriddhi returned Dhaka on Wednesday after their evacuation from war-ravaged Ukraine to Romania via Moldova this week.
Foreign ministry officials said that 28 crew members reached the country but it would take time to return the body of the ship’s third engineer Hadisur Rahman who was killed in a missile attack on the ship on March 2.
The state-owned ship which is currently rented out to a shipping company of Denmark came under Russian missile attack as it anchored at the port of Olvia in war-ravaged Ukraine.
The ship could not leave the port following the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24 while the ship’s captain abandoned the vessel after it came under the attack, said the foreign ministry officers.
An expatriate Bangladeshi group in Ukraine helped the crew to be rescued from the ship and crossed to Ukraine border, said the Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers’ Association officials.
Foreign Ministry’s East European wing’s director general Shikdar Badiruzzaman said that the Bangladesh embassies in Poland, Romani and Austria helped the return of the crew.
‘It is a matter of happiness that finally we could embrace them. They will go to their families. They are now safe and free,’ he told reporters waiting for the arrival of the rescued sailors at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.
About the body of Hadisur Rahman, he said the body would be brought back as soon as possible.
About the returned sailors, Badiruzzaman said the seafarers were extremely tired and ‘traumatised’.
The ship’s captain, GM Noor-e-Alam, said that it was a big deal that they could return safely. ‘We were anxious. Our government had taken adequate steps,’ he added.
About the incident on March 2, he said that they were holding a routine meeting when the bomb attacked.
The captain said that the ship’s bridge caught fire and they managed to douse the flames.
The crew members, after arrival, were were taken to the Dhaka office of the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation. Later, they were sent to their respective houses.
Hadisur’s family was present at the airport too. His brother Golam Mawla Prince was seen crying and repeatedly asking the reporters about the body of his brother.
Hadisur’s another brother Tarikul Islam said that they heard that the Hadisur’s body would be brought back with the 28 crew members so they turned up at the airport to receive the body.
-With New Age input
