Bangladeshi expats in Ukraine can enter Poland without visa

Bangladeshi expatriates who are stranded in Ukraine can enter Poland without any visa.  

Valid passport-holders will be able to cross the border into Poland by presenting their passports to the border guards, the Bangladesh Embassy in Warsaw said in a statement on Thursday.

Those who do not have a passport can also enter the country with a travel pass. The embassy has requested all Bangladeshis to carry two passport-sized colour photographs of themselves.

A delegation from the Bangladesh mission in Warsaw will leave for the Poland-Ukraine border to help Bangladeshis enter the country on Friday, according to the statement.

The embassy highlighted the explosions rocking Ukraine along with a shortage of petrol and reports of heavy traffic congestion along the way to the Polish border. In the circumstances, it urged expatriate Bangladeshis, who live far from the border to closely monitor the situation before heading out.

After days of mounting tensions, Russian forces launched a ground and air offensive on Ukraine on Thursday. The capital, Kyiv, is also being shelled.

Bangladeshis living in different cities of Ukraine have found themselves trapped in the conflict and have called on the authorities to rescue them. Most of them are students.

The distance from Kyiv to the Polish border is about 500 km but the shut down of air spaces in the region and abnormal traffic on land makes the journey a precarious one, according to Bangladeshis stranded in Ukraine.

Many Bangladeshi students do not have enough money to travel to Poland. Their woes are exacerbated by the complexities of receiving money from Bangladesh.

There are also reports of some Bangladeshis being trapped in the Ukrainian city Mariupol, which is more than 1000 km away from the Polish border. The Russian forces also attacked the area on Thursday.

The embassy has provided several emergency hotline numbers for information and emergency communication for expatriate Bangladeshis set out below.

Md Masudur Rahman: +48 739 527 722

Farhana Yasmin: +48 690 282 561

Bilal Hossain: +48 739 634 125

Mohammad Rabbani: +48 696 745 903