Islamabad: While the national flag carrier has brought back 479 bodies of Pakistanis, more than 100 bodies of the citizens have yet to be transported back.

The National Assembly was informed on Wednesday by Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had transported 479 bodies, including 128 from Saudi Arabia since February this year, but still, 119 remained to be lifted from various countries.

“We will bring the remains of our citizens with the blessings of Almighty,” the minister said, adding that despite several constraints and unfeasible conditions, the PIA was doing its job efficiently in this regard.

Mr Khan said the PIA had brought back 56,846 stranded Pakistanis through 285 flights from more than 60 countries over the past more than four months. Most of these people were jobless expatriates, mainly in the Gulf region, those with expired visas in different countries, members of Tableeghi Jamaat, pilgrims from Iran and Saudi Arabia, students whose hostels and universities had been shut down, he added.

“We have made arrangements for transportation of 2,018 members of Tableeghi Jamaat from Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, etc, where PIA does not operate,” the minister said, adding that around 550 students had been brought from Wuhan in China through provision of up to 50 percent subsidised air tickets. “Besides this, we brought back our 1,712 citizens who were in prisons in different countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Malaysia, etc.”

56,846 citizens repatriated from 60 countries in four months

The lower house of parliament was informed that Pakistan had been granted permission by the US authorities to operate only 12 flights to repatriate citizens and 1,200 had already been brought back and more would be repatriated as the flight quota still remained in place.

Responding to an earlier suggestion that country may utilise the services of Air Force’s C-130 aircraft and Navy’s fleet to bring back Pakistanis stranded in different countries, the aviation minister said such decision would be taken by the National Command and Operations Centre and the National Coordination Committee headed by the prime minister.

Later, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser chaired a meeting to discuss the status of repatriation of Pakistanis stranded in different countries. It was attended by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Syed Zulfi Bukhari, convener of the Committee on Repatriation of Stranded Expatriates Abroad Shahid Ahmad, chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Malik Mohammad Ahsaanullah Tiwana and chairman of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis Sheikh Fiazuddin.

The speaker said the Pakistani diaspora abroad was an asset for the country and they were facing a number of challenges due to the Covid-19 situation.

The meeting was informed by the foreign minister that his ministry was proactively coordinating with the authorities concerned for repatriation of Pakistanis. “A Crisis Management Unit has been established for this purpose, which is manned and operated round the clock,” he said, adding that more than 90,000 Pakistanis were still residing abroad.

Mr Qureshi said those repatriated included 2,018 members of the Tableeghi Jamaat, but 36 of its members were still stranded abroad.

He said Pakistani missions abroad had spent over Rs150 million out of their budgets to assist the stranded Pakistanis. “Currently, the priority is being given to those people who are either on expired visit visas or have lost their jobs,” he added.

Zulfi Bukhari said the capacity to repatriate had been enhanced from 2,000 per week to 18,000 per week with operationalisation of six airports. He informed the meeting about plans for resumption of air traffic up to 40pc of the pre-lockdown level.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2020

https://www.dawn.com/news/1562731/pia-brought-back-479-bodies-of-pakistanis-na-told