More than 15,000 Pakistanis repatriated from 38 countries: Moeed Yusuf

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Security Moeed Yusuf on Saturday said that govt making all-out efforts to bring back stranded Pakistanis in a safe manner, ARY News reported.

Addressing a news conference in Islamabad along with Special Assistant to PM on Health Dr Zafar Mirza, the PM’s aide on national security said that more than 15,000 nationals have been brought back to Pakistan from various countries through special flights.

“Government is striving hard to bring back more nationals to Pakistan stranded in several countries,” he said and added 100,000 more stranded Pakistani nationals have contacted the authorities and all of them would be brought back to Pakistan in a safe manner.

“We want all Pakistanis to return as soon as possible but in a safe manner. We cannot have them coming back and infecting their loved ones,” he added.

He appealed all nationals coming from abroad to follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) set by the government. “Some influential people are trying to escape testing after returning from abroad. The govt is following the international procedure of testing everyone returning from abroad”.

He said it has been decided to operate 30 flights in the next ten days and the focus of these flights will be United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as 90 percent of 1000 stranded Pakistanis are in these gulf countries.

On the occasion, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza has said that yesterday Pakistan conducted the highest number of tests yet.

“We conducted 9,164 tests conducted yesterday, the highest so far and we expect the testing capacity to also increase further,” he added.

Dr Zafar Mirza said the coronavirus cases have witnessed an increase in the country but these are still less than the projections.