SEPANG, July 23 — A special flight, under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s directive to bring back Malaysians in strife-torn Bangladesh, departed from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Terminal 2 at 7.30am today.

The AirAsia flight, which utilises an Airbus A330 wide-body aircraft capable of accommodating 350 passengers, is expected to arrive at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka at 9.20am (local time).

Foreign Ministry’s South and Central Asia Division undersecretary Datuk Shazelina Zainul Abidin, who is leading the mission, said that over 100 Malaysians, including students, have been sheltered at the Malaysian High Commission in Dhaka since yesterday.

"This evacuation mission has been planned since July 12 and is expected to take less than 12 hours.

"Once we got the green light from our High Commissioner in Bangladesh, we secured the aircraft, but there was a slight delay, and we could not commence yesterday as we were asked to wait to ensure our students reached our High Commission in Dhaka,” she told Bernama.

Shazelina said the evacuation flight is expected to depart for Malaysia from Dhaka at 10am (local time) and arrive at KLIA Terminal 2 at around 4.20pm.

A total of 15 personnel from Wisma Putra, the Prime Minister’s Department, the National Security Council and the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) are involved in the mission.

Bernama is represented by assistant editor (news service) Nik Nurfaqih Nik Wil and photographer Muhammad Izzuddin Abd Radzak.

Yesterday, the prime minister reportedly said that the government has decided to bring back all Malaysians in Bangladesh due to security concerns following escalating tensions in that country.

He said this decision followed the Foreign Ministry’s monitoring of recent developments in Bangladesh. — Bernama