Coronavirus Outbreak: Special flights to bring back stranded Pakistanis from abroad
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Security Dr. Moeed Yusuf announced on Wednesday that the government has decided to allow special flights to operate from April 3 to April 11 to bring back Pakistanis stranded abroad.
“NCC has decided that, from April 4, in fact from April 3 to April 11, 17 PIA flights will be flown to different countries around the world to bring back our citizens who are either stranded or whose visas have expired.
Some of these countries include Canada, United Kingdom, Turkey, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, etc,” stated Yusuf during a press conference in Islamabad.
Dr. Yusuf also stressed that the government’s greatest concern was potentially importing COVID-19 from abroad, hence, every Pakistan who will arrive at the Islamabad airport in these flights will be tested for coronavirus.
“According to our estimates, 2,000 passengers will be brought home. But we will have to review these cases on a daily basis because we will only bring people home according to our testing capacity,” concluded Dr. Yusuf.