RAWALPINDI: Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan has announced that the government will bring back through special flights bodies of those Pakistanis who have died abroad from illnesses other than coronavirus disease.

“We are ready to bring back bodies of those Pakistani nationals from abroad who have died from illnesses other than Covid-19,” the minister said while talking to journalists at the secretariat on Saturday.

Referring to the issue of overseas Pakistanis who had lost jobs and were seeking to return home, the minister said that the federal government had been preparing a policy to bring back those Pakistanis who had been laid off permanently or temporarily in the United Arab Emirates or other Gulf countries.

“When the situation becomes normal, the government’s top priority would be to send those Pakistanis back to their jobs who have lost their jobs temporarily as Pakistanis working abroad have been one of the biggest sources of the government’s foreign exchange as they send back around $21 billion to $25 billion annually to Pakistan,” Mr Sarwar said.

According to media reports, around 2,000 Pakistanis stranded in different countries had been repatriated to Pakistan so far and the government had placed those still stranded in various parts of the world into four categories to make arrangements for their return to the homeland.

The minister said that the federal government had already issued a guideline for the burial of the bodies of those people who had died or suspected to have died from Covid-19.

According to the guideline, the burial or cremation of the patients dying from coronavirus disease would be managed by relevant government authorities keeping in view the rights of the family, the risk of the exposure of the people to infection and the need for investigation into the causes of the death.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2020