Ukraine-Russia conflict: Evacuation of students, families underway

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities in Ukraine have expedited evacuation operation in wake of Russia’s attack and on Saturday continue to shift families of members of the Pakistan embassy in Kyiv and students to border areas of the war-hit country, ARY NEWS reported.

According to details shared by Pakistan’s embassy, 12 families of the staffers at the embassy have been evacuated and are being shifted to the Ukraine-Romania border. “Pakistan embassy in Romania is facilitating the entire evacuation process,” it said.

Moreover, 34 more students stranded in Kyiv have been on their way to Loyo from Kharkiv after they boarded a train last night. The facilitation desk of the embassy in Loyo will attend to the students and later shift them to a border area.

Pakistan’s ambassador in Ukraine shared that 3,000 students were present in Ukraine and a majority of them have been evacuated and only upto 600 are currently in Kyiv.

“Upto 50 more students will be evacuated tonight,” he said and added that they would be sent to Poland. “We are faced with cyberattacks in Ukraine and the banking system is currently not working but we are still trying our best to evacuate all Pakistanis,” he said.

Yesterday, Pakistan prepared a flight plan to evacuate Pakistani citizens and students trapped in war-torn Ukraine as the ambassador and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) chief executive officer made a contact today.

PIA CEO Arshad Malik and the Pakistani Ambassador to Ukraine Dr Noel I Khokhar held a contact to discuss different plans for the evacuation of the nationals from war-torn Ukraine.

A flight operation was prepared to evacuate 2,000 Pakistanis trapped in Ukraine. According to the plan, all Pakistani students will gather in Ukraine’s Ternopil city. The embassy will make arrangements to transport the students via the ground route to Poland.