RAWALPINDI: A chartered flight carrying 26 Pakistani deportees arrived at Islamabad International Airport (IIA) from Frankfurt on Tuesday.

Earlier, 58 Pakistani deportees were scheduled to arrive on the special flight from Frankfurt, but due to unknown reasons 26 of them with 20 crew members arrived on the chartered flight ZT-191 of Airbus A330 that landed at the airport at about 8:15am.

All passengers were checked by health staff through thermal scanners on arrival under standard operating procedures (SOPs) and no suspected case of Covid-19 was found. Crew members were not allowed to disembark the special flight in light of SOPs.

The government of Pakistan had granted permission to operate a chartered flight carrying 58 Pakistani citizens who were to be repatriated from Germany on Tuesday. Ministry of Interior and Federal Investigation Agency’s immigration authorities were to only accept deportees who had been verified through the readmission process as per the procedure issued in 2015. Although the actual number of deportees was 68, the interior ministry had verified 58 only.

All those who had been verified by Pakistani authorities had Pakistani passports.

Following the request of Embassy of Germany in Islamabad to operate a chartered flight from Frankfurt to Islamabad on Jan 19, 2021 to repatriate the deportees, the ministry and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approved landing of the flight.

The Pakistani deportees who were repatriated from Germany, belong to Gujranwala, Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Hafizabad, Sheikhupura, Toba Tek Singh, Peshawar, Mandi Baha Uddin, Gujrat, Kurram Agency, Mirpur AJK and Sialkot. Upon arrival in Islamabad, all deportees were allowed to go to their respective homes.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2021