1,473 Bangladeshi migrants repatriated by IOM in 2020

A total of 1,473 Bangladeshi migrants who were stranded in different countries have been repatriated in 2020 by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Bangladesh has been the sixth among the top ten countries of origin of the migrants who had returned voluntarily to their countries of origin, said the UN organisation in a statement on Saturday.

Under its Return and Reintegration programme, it released key highlights, including trends, figures and initiatives, and efforts to assist and reintegrate migrants returning voluntarily to their countries of origin during the past year.

The border closures and mobility restrictions imposed by governments worldwide in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 posed unprecedented challenges to IOM’s return and reintegration activities.

They resulted in several adaptations allowing the organisation to continue providing return and reintegration support to migrants.
In 2020, IOM assisted 42,181 migrants to return home voluntarily, including those who were stranded or in vulnerable situations – a decrease of 35 percent from 2019.

Among them, 4,038 migrants who lived in humanitarian crisis-hit Libya and Yemen, and 1,100 stranded in different countries due to Covid-19 were repatriated.

The European Economic Area remained the main host region in 2020 with 16,649 migrants assisted to return to their countries of origin.
Niger was the main host country with a total number of 9,069 migrants assisted to return, reconfirming the trend of increasing numbers of returns taking place from transit countries.

Of the roughly 42,000 migrants assisted, 40 percent returned within the same region in 2020. Migrants assisted to return within West and Central Africa alone accounted for 65 percent of such flows.

Guided by IOM’s Integrated Approach to Reintegration, which is operationalized in the Reintegration Handbook, country offices worldwide promoted the sustainable reintegration of migrants through reintegration counselling (either pre-departure or upon arrival) as well as economic, social, and psychosocial assistance at the individual, community and structural levels. Despite fewer migrants assisted to return in 2020, IOM maintained a high level of reintegration support, with 121 country offices in host or transit countries and countries of origin providing 106,230 reintegration services.

“This publication demonstrates that despite the challenging circumstances posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, IOM continued to provide critical assistance to migrants returning to their countries of origin in a safe and dignified manner. IOM also devised innovative ways to assist them and their communities with their sustainable reintegration,” said Yitna Getachew, Head of IOM’s Migrant Protection and Assistance Division.