Stranded Pakistanis return from China as flight operations resume
- 03 Feb 2020
Passenger flights from virus-hit China arrived at the Islamabad International Airport on Monday – repatriating Pakistanis stranded in the country – as flight operations between the two countries resumed.
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The flights were suspended after the World Health Organisation declared the Wuhan coronavirus as a global health emergency. Pakistan on Friday had halted flights to and from China with immediate effect till Feb.2.
Pakistan suspends China flights amid coronavirus outbreak
China and Pakistan are close allies, and mutual travel and investment has increased sharply in recent years.
"We are resuming flight operations with China," additional secretary of aviation Abdul Sattar Khokhar told Reuters by text message.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services Dr Zafar Mirza along with Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing received the 69 passengers at Islamabad International Airport on Monday.
The passengers arrived via Chinese Southern Airlines CZ6007 and included 57 Pakistanis and 12 Chinese.
Mirza said he and the Chinese diplomat “supervised the implementation of the airport SOPs” and interviewed the passengers.
"They are carefully scrutinised and monitored here," Yao Jing told a news conference with Zafar Mirza.
Some Pakistani students are under lockdown in China's Hubei province and want to be evacuated. Mirza has ruled out evacuating the students immediately, citing the risk of the virus spreading.
"We are really unhappy and students are very disappointed," Muhammad Rauf, a Pakistani student in Wuhan told Reuters. "The situation is like a pressure cooker."
Students and their families were becoming more anxious, unable to sleep and most were shut in their dormitories most of the day, he said.
Mirza said there had been seven suspected cases of people with coronavirus in Pakistan, but all have so far proven negative. Neighbouring India confirmed its third case of the coronavirus on Monday.
China said on Saturday its foreign minister, Wang Yi, had raised travel restrictions in a telephone call with Pakistan's foreign minister.
Agencies
