BSS–09 Bangladeshis didn’t enter Italy with fake COVID certificates: Foreign Ministry

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Bangladeshis didn’t enter Italy with fake COVID certificates: Foreign Ministry

DHAKA, July 16 2020 (BSS) – Foreign Ministry today clarified that Bangladeshis, who entered Italy amid pandemic, did not carry fake COVID-19 negative certificate while Italian government suspended flight from Bangladesh along with 12 other countries till July 31.

The ministry made the clarification by issuing a press release saying that its attention has been drawn to the news published by some newspapers and broadcast by some news channels regarding detection of Coronavirus among some Bangladeshi expatriates in Italy.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to flag that around 1,600 Bangladeshis, who went to Italy recently, did not carry fake COVID19 negative certificates,” it said.

The Italian government has not yet put any condition to carry COVID19 negative certificate for travelling to Italy though some of Bangladeshi passengers carried such certificates on their own just in case they required those subsequently, it added.

“Fact of the matter is, among the (Italy bound Bangladeshi) passengers, only 33 carried COVID negative certificates and none from Regent Hospital or JKG. More importantly, Italy never required any passengers to carry negative COVID certificate,” read Foreign Minister Dr A K Abdul Momen’s text message sent to BSS regarding the issue.

The foreign ministry release also clarified that flights from Bangladesh, along with 12 other countries, have been suspended by the Italian authorities till 31 July 2020 while some media reported that flights are banned from Bangladesh to Italy till October 5th.

However, it said, unfortunately, some Bangladeshis who travelled to Italy in the recent days did not follow the mandatory quarantine rule, and “probably a few of them might have spread the virus in the community”.

In the last one week, out of 5,000 tests, 65 Bangladeshis residents in the Lazzio region of Italy have been detected with coronavirus while Italian government has decided to conduct COVID19 tests for all Bangladeshis (around 30,000) living the area in coordination with the Bangladesh embassy in Rome, added the release.

BSS/PR/TA/RY/13:20hrs