KARACHI: A black helicopter circled over the area as tug boats prepared to tow in the Pakistan Navy ship, Aslat, returning on Tuesday afternoon with 182 people stranded in Al Mukalla, Yemen, including 146 Pakistanis and 36 foreigners of whom 11 happened to be Indian nationals, eight were from China, five from the Philippines, four from the United Kingdom, three from Indonesia, two from Syria and one each from Egypt, Jordan and Canada.

There were loud cheers and clapping as the ship emerged from behind the other docked ships inside Karachi harbour and approached its berth. The people on the deck waved the green star and crescent banners while some made victory signs and sang ‘Dil dil Pakistan’ as others took out their cellphones to record the moment. The Indians were happy to have finally reached the safe harbour, never-mind it being Pakistan!

The first ones to disembark were the foreigners. Rajinder Kumar said that he had been working as an inspection engineer on an oilfield there since 2005. Asked why he preferred escaping the war in a Pakistani ship and not an Indian vessel, he smiled broadly. “I got on the first thing I found getting out of that country,” he said.

Michael Samuel, also an Indian national, said he had been working at the same oilfield since 2013 as his colleague Kumar. Mr Samuel said he would have loved to explore Karachi at least but couldn’t because he was here without a visa and had to go back home to his family, too.

Jai Raj, another one of their colleagues, called the experience of travelling on a PN ship for three days “quite nice”.

Ananda Mukherjee said he felt like he was a little eager to get in touch with his family to let them know that he had safely reached Karachi, but the ship crew was ahead of him on that. The gentleman, who worked in Yemen, with Weatherford Oil Tools, an international company reached here with two of his colleagues, a Syrian national and a Pakistani, from the same company.

Three British nationals and one Canadian were from an oil exploration and production company, Petro Masila. Ralf Luthe, a Canadian mechanical engineer, said that they were located 150km north of Al Mukalla and as the PNS Aslat could not get near Mukalla harbour due to much of a risk in that area, they did the next best thing and arrived at their company terminal. “Then we ferried people to the Petro Masila ship terminal from offshore to be able to board PNS Aslat,” he shared.

Meanwhile, his British friends working in the same company William Findlay, a surveyor, John Cunnigham Spears, mechanical superintendent, and William Smith, an oil export superintendent, said they felt like they were on a luxury cruise instead of a navy warship. They said that the captain and crew of the ship specially prepared an Easter Sunday dinner for them and added that they appreciated the fine weather which they encountered throughout their three days on board since the ship left Al Mukalla on April 4.

Jin Xu Ming, a Chinese student of Islamic Studies, said that he still had three years left to complete his course but was grateful to have come out of harm’s way unscathed.

Though the foreigners were in a rush to get back home as their embassy representatives were there to take them with them, all said that under different circumstances they would have loved to stay and enjoy the sights and sounds of Karachi.

Among the 146 Pakistanis were five schoolteachers and their principal. The co-education institution from nursery to class five was called the Pakistan National English School. One of the teachers, Sumaira Amjad, who taught English, Maths and Computer Studies, said that they had five campuses – in Al Mukalla, Ibb, Taiz, Aden and Hudaidah. “We had hidden 120 Pakistanis in our Al Mukalla campus, which had a big three-storey building,” she said. But then all of us fled together from there. Holding tight to her three-year-old little boy, Rayyan Khan, she said “he used to cover his ears and close eyes when he heard gunfire. Thank God we came out of there alive”.

Noor Ijaz, the school principal, said that they had many Yemeni students enrolled in their school as well since it offered English-medium education and there aren’t many such schools in Yemen. “We hope things get back to normal soon there so that we can go back. I miss the children,” she said.

Seventeen-year-old Mohammad Sadiq said he had been in Yemen only for six months. “I was conducting research in Islamic Studies at a university in Yemen,” he said.

Another youngster, Mohammad Asad, said that he also was doing research in the same subject but had only just started six months ago while it is a five-year course. “I hope things in Yemen normalise soon so that we can go back and carry on with where we left off in our studies,” he hoped.

Meanwhile, another student, Mohammad Hamid Subhani, said he wanted to request the Pakistan government to not send its forces into Yemen. “If that happens, the Yemeni people will hate Pakistanis and not allow us to come back to their country. It’s their battle, let them handle it themselves,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2015

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