A group of 164 Sri Lankans who were stranded in Bangalore, India due to the outbreak of COVID-19 were brought back home today (28).

Ada Derana correspondent said these Sri Lankans were repatriated in a special flight belonging to SriLankan Airlines.

The flight had departed for Bangalore at 9.10 am this morning and returned to Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) at around 12.40 pm in the afternoon.

The repatriated Sri Lankans have been directed to the mandatory quarantine process upon their arrival at the airport.

Although SriLankan Airlines temporarily suspended its scheduled passenger flights, it has been operating special flights to bring back more than 400 Sri Lankan students who were stranded overseas due to the prevailing travel restrictions imposed in view of the COVID 19 pandemic.

A group of 113 Sri Lankan students stranded in Pakistan were repatriated from Lahore and Karachi on April 21 while another batch of 101 Sri Lankan students was brought back from Amritsar, India on 23. In addition, 76 students were flown out from Kathmandu, Nepal on April 24 and 113 more from Coimbatore, India on April 26. A SriLankan flight also brought back another 73 from Bangladesh on Monday (27).

In the meantime, a meeting chaired by Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has been held on the Sri Lankans currently stranded in foreign countries. According to reports, the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka was also present at this meeting.