May 12, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429

KARACHI, May 11: About 100 Pakistanis who are stranded in the African country of Burkina Faso for over a year have sought their government’s help to return home, according to a BBC report.

These people from various places in Punjab say that travel agents charged them as much as 15,000 euros each for taking them to France via Burkina Faso. However, the agents dumped them in Ouagadougou where they have been living for over a year. They say that have been deprived of their passports.

The BBC report quoted one of them, Nasar Hayat, a resident of Bhalwal in Sargodha district, as saying that he had been living in Burkina Faso since January 1, last year. He said there were over 100 Pakistanis in Burkina Faso who were living like ‘prisoners’.

Hayat said they lived in houses rented by the agents.

He said one Pakistani died and two others who were sick did not get any medical care.

When asked why they not contacted the Pakistani embassy, Hayat said that because their passports had been seized by the agents they feared that any attempt to get out of their ‘detention’ might land them into trouble and they could be handed over to the United States under the charges of terrorism.

He urged the Pakistani government to take up the matter with the Burkina Faso authorities and help them to return to Pakistan.