Flight carrying 93 Pakistanis reaches Islamabad from Sudan

A PIA flight carrying 93 Pakistanis reached Islamabad on Monday from Sudan, where fighting continued for a third week despite a ceasefire between the country’s rival military forces.

“93 stranded Pakistani nationals in Sudan arrived at Islamabad International Airport via PK754 today,” the Foreign Office (FO) said in a tweet today.

They were received by Minister for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Sajjid Hussain Turi and Adviser to the Prime Minister, Amir Muqam, as per Radio Pakistan.

The FO has said that all of the nearly 1,000 Pakistanis in Sudan will be evacuated in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Turi said that out of 1,200 Pakistanis living in Sudan, about 500 have returned to their home country. He said that the government is bearing all the expenses.

Earlier, the FO had thanked the Saudi foreign ministry for facilitating the evacuation process “in this difficult time”.

The FO was responding to Saudi Foreign Ministry’s statement which said that 36 Pakistanis had arrived in Jeddah via the Royal Saudi Air Force’s transport plane.

The press release further said that an unspecified number of Pakistanis had also arrived via ship.

Rival Sudanese forces on Sunday announced the extension of a truce they have largely violated, as warplanes roared overhead and fighting continued on the ground in Sudan’s capital.

Deadly hostilities between the army and heavily-armed paramilitaries in Khartoum and other parts of the country have entered a third week.

The latest widely-breached ceasefire was scheduled to formally expire at midnight (2200 GMT) before the rival forces announced an extension for 72 hours that the Sudanese army said came due to “US and Saudi mediation”.