ISLAMABAD: The government has announced to start a week-long repatriation flight programme from Saturday for bringing stranded nationals overseas due to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that 17 repatriation flights would be operated between April 4 -11.
The National Coordination Committee on the Covid-19 pandemic has approved the plan. Repatriation would be carried out in phases under which priority would be given to those held up in transit, followed by those, whose visas were expiring. Students or Pakistanis employed overseas would be third on the priority list.
All nationals will undergo coronavirus testing at the airports for which the testing and quarantine capacity was being augmented.
Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui revealed during the weekly media briefing that Pakistan International Airlines had operated special flights to bring back stranded Pakis¬tanis from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar and Thailand.
Repatriation from Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Tashkent, Baku, Baghdad, London and Toronto has also been planned, she maintained.
Pakistan’s diplomatic missions overseas had been told to assist the nationals abroad by providing food, medicines, and accommodation and facilitating extension of visas, in case of expiry of short-term visas.
About the return of Chinese workers to Pakistan, who got held up in China during vacations because of coronavirus outbreak there, the spokesperson said the Chinese government was following a “double-quarantine” policy for the officials of Chinese companies working on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan, adding that Pakistan government was hopeful that CPEC projects would remain unaffected by the delays caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.
