Around 170 passengers holding Bangladeshi passports have remained stranded at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Toronto to Dhaka was grounded due to a technical fault.

Biman flight BG306, carrying around 260 passengers, landed at the Italian airport at around 6am local time on Friday for a scheduled refuelling stop.

Shortly after landing, passengers were informed that the aircraft had developed a technical problem that was expected to be fixed within an hour.

However, passengers remained inside the aircraft for around eight hours before being asked to disembark.

Since then, many of the Bangladeshi passengers have remained inside the airport, with passengers alleging that Biman authorities have not been providing adequate food or arranging hotel accommodation for them.

The prolonged delay has caused particular hardship for elderly passengers and children.

Of the remaining 80-90 passengers, some holding passports from countries including Canada and the United States were allowed to leave the airport and stay at nearby hotels. Some passengers also reportedly arranged alternative flights to Dhaka at their own expense.

Afra Saiyara Haque, who is travelling on the flight with her husband to visit their parents in Bangladesh, said they had been stranded for more than 30 hours.

“The Biman officials are not even attending to us to know our situation,” she told Daily Waadaa.

Sayeem Rana, another passenger on the flight, said in a Facebook post that they had been sitting in Zone E1 of Fiumicino Airport for the past 16-17 hours.

During that time, they were allowed to sleep for five to six hours on lounge chairs and even on the floor, only to be asked to leave later.

“If the airline authorities had acted responsibly, they could still have arranged accommodation for us. But none of the responsible officials can be found anywhere,” he wrote.

A Biman official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the airline could not allow passengers holding Bangladeshi passports to leave the airport because of visa-related restrictions imposed by Italian immigration authorities.

Biman had earlier said they were working to arrange alternative flights, accommodation and meals for the affected passengers.

Passengers, however, denied this.

According to Biman’s latest press release, a flight carrying the required engineering team, spare parts and equipment to rectify the aircraft’s technical problems is currently en route from Dhaka to Rome.

The flight is expected to arrive in Rome after 7pm local time.

Subject to the successful rectification of the technical fault, flight BG306 is scheduled to depart Rome for Dhaka at 11pm local time, according to the airline.

The flight is expected to arrive in Dhaka at around 11:30am Bangladesh time on Sunday.