Pakistan, UAE plan to enhance repatriation flights

Pakistan and UAE have planned to sanction more flights to repatriate Pakistanis stranded in the United Arab Emirates.

Around a dozen repatriation flights will depart the UAE between April 20 and April 28 and they will be operated by Emirates, Air Arabia and PIA, reported Gulf media, quoting sources.

As many as six flights of the UAE carriers have been allocated which includes five by Dubai-based Emirates and one Air Arabia flight. In addition, seven flights of Pakistan International Airlines would be repatriating citizens of Pakistan between April 20 to 28, 2020.

The first repatriation flight of PIA took off on Saturday, April 18, carrying 227 people to Islamabad while four additional flights repatriated 1,000 Pakistanis to Lahore and Karachi on Monday, April 20.

Around 40,000 people had registered with the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai for repatriation recently. It includes over 10,000 overseas Pakistanis who were rendered jobless because of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Recently, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's Foreign Minister, and Pakistan's Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi held a telephonic conversation where Qureshi thanked the UAE government for the support in combating Covid-19 as well as for releasing 400 Pakistani prisoners, and their subsequent repatriation to Pakistan.

While exchanging views on the global outbreak of Covid-19, the two foreign ministers agreed on the importance of enhanced bilateral cooperation to jointly address the challenges.

Pakistan's foreign minister also informed Sheikh Abdullah of the efforts being made by the government for repatriation of the stranded Pakistanis from UAE to Pakistan.

On Wednesday, the UAE announced 483 new cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, bringing the total number of infected persons to 8,238, according to the Ministry of Health and Prevention.

During the routine virtual press briefing on Covid-19, Dr Farida Al Hosani, official spokesperson for the UAE health sector, said 103 patients have fully recovered from Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,546.

Six new deaths of Covid-19 patients were also reported on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 52. The official said 31,807 new coronavirus tests were conducted across the country over the past day.