Staff Correspondent:

About 175 Bangladeshis returned to the country from a detention centre in Libya on Thursday morning, said foreign ministry sources.

They reached the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) at 6am on a Buraq Air flight.

Most of the returnees had been lured by human smugglers to follow an illegal route to Europe via Libya and the adjoining seas. Later, the smugglers allegedly tortured them at different “hideouts.”

They were held at Ganfuda Detention Centre in Benghazi, Libya for failure to provide adequate documents.

Al Amin Noyon, manager at BRAC’s migration programme, told reporters that the repatriated Bangladeshis would be allowed to return to their respective homes upon completion of some formalities at HSIA.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Tripoli, Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Organization of Migration (IOM) faciliated the repatriation of the 175 people.