Parents protest as Pakistani students stuck in China under COVID-19 lockdown
17 February, 2020
Around a hundred persons called on Pakistan's government to "recreate our kids" from the locked down Chinese province of Hubei in a demonstration on Sunday in Karachi.
Pakistan's government has up to now eliminated evacuating the more than 1,000 Pakistani students in the province, home to the town 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 gathering for parents in Islamabad on Wednesday and that his government was working with Chinese authorities to make sure students were taken care of.
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 "bring back our kids" and held up banners with the same message.
Earlier in the week a large number of families in Lahore held an identical protest outside the Chinese consulate.
A spokesman for Mirza did not immediately respond to a Reuters obtain further comment.
He said on Twitter six Pakistani students in China confirmed to have had the virus had fully recovered and one was still acquiring treatment.
Nonetheless, students in touch with 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 previously 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 another home. Unfortunately, I don't have any idea when I'll return 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 struggling to afford food and water in bottles from their university's food delivery service while in lock down.
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