28 sailors of Banglar Samriddhi in Romania

The 28 sailors of the Bangladeshi ship "Banglar Samriddhi", stranded in the Ukrainian port of Olvia, have reached the Romanian capital of Bucharest safely from Ukraine.

"They reached Romania at 4:15pm on Sunday, Bangladesh time. Arrangements have been made for them to stay at a local hotel," Daud Ali, Bangladeshi ambassador to Romania, told The Business Standard (TBS) around 5pm on Sunday.

"The sailors were brought to Bucharest from the Moldova-Romania border on a bus hired by our embassy. All the sailors are in good health despite the long journey," he said.

Daud Ali said, "Arrangements will be made for the repatriation of the sailors. Since it is not possible to get everyone tickets -on the same flight, the sailors will be sent back to the country in different groups. The repatriation process may start by next Tuesday."

On condition of anonymity, a sailor of MV Banglar Samriddhi told TBS on Facebook Messenger, "Our ship, with 29 sailors, was stranded in Olvia Port from 23 February. After eight days, the third engineer of the ship, Hadisur Rahman, was killed in a rocket attack on the ship last Wednesday evening. On Thursday, the ship was declared abandoned and 28 sailors were taken by tugboat to a bunker outside the port, with the help of Bangladeshis living in Ukraine."

Salman said, "Strangers helped us and some of them were Bangladeshis."

The sailor said that after spending 39 hours in the bunker, the sailors left for the neighbouring country of Moldova by bus at 12:00am local time in Ukraine on Saturday. The 200km journey to Moldova was marred by a traffic jam when Ukrainian troops demolished a bridge, and their journey to Moldova came to a temporary halt. They eventually reached Romania via Moldova on Sunday, on an alternate route.

Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers Association General Secretary, Md Sakhawat Hossain, told TBS that the sailors crossed the Moldovan border after 9am Bangladesh time after immigration processing. Then they were taken into the custody of the Bangladesh embassy in Romania. From the border they boarded another bus for the Romanian capital Bucharest.

He said that after a long journey of two days, the bus of sailors reached a hotel in Bucharest where they were received by Ambassador Daud Ali.

Sakhawat said the body of deceased sailor Hadisur Rahman has been stored in a freezer in Olvia Port. Arrangements will be made to bring the body back to the country as soon as possible.