LANDI KOTAL: As many as 492 stranded Pakistanis including 92 women returned from Afghanistan via the Torkham border here on Tuesday.

Officials said another 111 children, not registered with them as stranded persons, but were travelling with their parents, mostly mothers, were also allowed to enter Pakistan.

Shamsul Islam, the focal person for returning Pakistanis, told Dawn that among the 492 registered persons, 470 were sent to the quarantine centres in Landi Kotal, 22 to Shah Kas centre in Jamrud and one person with some visible symptoms of coronavirus was admitted to the isolation ward of the district headquarter hospital in Landi Kotal.

He said so far 1,205 registered persons stranded in Afghanistan after the closure of the borders on March 16 had returned to Pakistan via the Torkham border.

A statement issued from the deputy commissioner’s office said a total of 1,318 persons, including those coming from Afghanistan, had been kept in different quarantine centres in the Khyber district. It said 43 returnees had so far tested positive for Covid-19.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2020