Bangladeshi students living in China’s Wuhan have made a humanitarian appeal to the government to evacuate them following an outbreak of deadly Coronavirus.
Some students, in their Facebook post, in the last two days requested the Bangladesh embassy to send them back home.
More than 400 Bangladeshis are living in the city where the outbreak is severe. The virus has so far claimed 56 lives in China.
Around 400 Bangladeshi students are stranded in Wuhan, said Huazhong University of Science and Technology’s PhD student Quaiyum Hasan.
“A ghostly environment prevails in the city. Vehicles and shops are shut. Nothing except dry food is available in only one or two super shops that are open,” he said.
Quaiyum, who is living there with his wife and three-year-old girl, has requested the Bangladesh authorities to send his family back home.
He said no officials of Bangladesh embassy made any sort of contact with them.
Bangladesh embassy in Beijing opened a hotline number - + (86)-17801116005 for smooth communication with Bangladeshi people living in China round the clock.
But some of the students alleged that they are not being able to connect the hotline number.
Calling the hotline number of Bangladesh embassy in Beijing, it was learnt that the authorities are maintaining regular contact with Bangladeshi students in Wuhan.
All the Bangladeshi students and researchers living in the city are safe, the embassy authorities said.
Abdullah Al Hafiz, a government official living in Wuhan, shared his experience in a Facebook status.
“We are spending every moment in utmost fear. Over 400 Bangladeshi students, some with their family members, are living in Wuhan. Everyone please pray for us and convey our situation here to the Bangladesh government. Tell them to take us back home, taking permission from Chinese authorities,” Hafiz wrote.
More than 2000 people including some foreigners have so far been diagnosed with the disease.
Bangladesh ambassador to China Mahbub Uz Zaman on Saturday evening told Prothom Alo that they are maintaining regular contact with students in Wuhan. Also, ambassador and other officials have added themselves in WeChat group created by the students so that they can get regular update of the situation.
Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province, is one of most populous cities of China.
After the outbreak, the city authorities have shut public transport and airport in Wuhan. So the Bangladeshis are not being able to move away from city.
“Many of us can’t go back to our country. We are become mentally shattered by this awful situation,” State Key Laboratory of Wuhan’s student Jubayer Haque wrote in Facebook.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has set up scanners in Benapole land port.
Authorities also put scanners in Chittagong and Mongla ports, Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Chattogram’s Shah Amanat International Airport and Sylhet’s Osmani International Airport.
Around thousand passengers from China have undergone screening but no one has been detected with the virus.