The national flag carrier -- Pakistan International Airlines -- has brought back as many as 230 stranded Pakistanis from Ukraine through Poland, as part of its special flight operations to airlift citizens following the Russia-Ukraine conflict which had impacted the global fuel prices and refugees crisis.
The development was shared by the Foreign Office in a tweet on Wednesday. Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood, along with Polish Ambassador to Pakistan Maciej Pisarski, welcomed the returning Pakistani students at the Islamabad International Airport.
Moreover, PIA CEO Chief Executive Officer Air Marshal Arshad Malik also shared the video of students at the airport.
The PIA on Tuesday started its special flight operations to bring back stranded Pakistanis from the war-torn country. In a press release issued on Tuesday, PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez Khan said the flight PK-7787, which was dispatched on the directives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would bring back around 300 Pakistanis to the country and land at the Islamabad International Airport. “More flights will also be operated on the instructions of the government of Pakistan,” the PIA spokesman said.
According to the Foreign Office, the Pakistan Embassy in Ukraine has claimed to have so far evacuated as many as 1,482 stranded citizens.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has forced more than two million Ukrainians to flee their country, according to the United Nations statistics. Moreover, the oil prices have soared to a near 14-year high and safe-haven gold broke $2,000. In addition to this, the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday witnessed a bloodbath, as the benchmark KSE-100 Index plummeted over 1,400 points (3%) during intra-day trading.