Groups of Pakistani students stuck in China demand their return
18 February, 2020
Pakistan’s government has up to now eliminated evacuating the a lot more than 1,000 Pakistani students in the province, home to metropolis of Wuhan, at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak.
State Health Minister Zafar Mirza said on Twitter on Friday that he and other ministers would hold a meeting for parents in Islamabad on Wednesday and that his government was working with Chinese authorities to make sure students were looked after.
But many students and their own families have expressed growing frustration as the death toll in China mounts, pointing abroad, including neighbouring India and Bangladesh, evacuating their citizens.
“For God’s sake, we request from the federal government representatives please recreate our children, please listen to a mother’s grievance,” one protester, who declined to provide her name, told media while bursting into tears.
The protesters chanted “recreate our kids” and organized banners with the same message.
Earlier in the week a large number of families in Lahore held a similar protest beyond your Chinese consulate.
A spokesman for Mirza did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for further comment.
He said on Twitter six Pakistani students in China confirmed to experienced the virus had fully recovered and one was still acquiring treatment.
Nonetheless, students touching Reuters from China in the last days said they wanted to leave.
Mir Hassan, students whose father died of a heart ailment this month while he was stuck in Wuhan, said he had been told by Pakistani officials he would not be evacuated despite wanting to return home to his grieving mother.
“She actually is also begging me to come back home. Unfortunately, I haven’t any idea when I'll go back home and see my mom,” he told Reuters.
Sahil Hassan, a PhD student in Wuhan, said he was finding it hard to receive scholarship payments, leaving them unable to afford food and bottled water from their university’s food delivery service while in lock down.
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