TAFTAN: Mohammad Hassan anxiously returned from neighbouring Iran this week, after witnessing drones, missiles, and explosions tear through Tehran’s sky, during what he called long, “horrifying nights”.

The 35-year-old University of Tehran student is one of about 3,000 Pakistanis who, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have returned home since Israel launched its aerial war last week.

Governments around the world are scrambling to evacuate their nationals caught up in the rapidly spiralling conflict as Israel and Iran trade missile and drone strikes.

“I was in the city centre where most of the strikes took place and even one of the student dormitories was attacked and luckily no one was dead, but students were injured,” Hassan said.

There are more than 500 Pakistani students at his university alone, he said, all of them on their way “back home”.

“Those days and nights were very horrifying... hearing sirens, the wailing, the danger of being hit by missiles. As one peeped out the window in the night, you could see drones, missiles with fire tails,” he told AFP.In recent years, Iranian consulates across Pakistan have stepped up efforts to promote their universities. Meanwhile, millions of Pakistani Shias also hope to make at least one pilgrimage to holy sites in Iran, foremost among them the sacred city of Qom.

Mohammad Khalil, a 41-year-old petroleum engineer, described the situation in Tehran, as residents sheltered indoors and families fled.

“In the last two days, I saw people moving out of the city in different vehicles with necessary commodities,” Khalil said.

Abdul Ghani Khan sells medical equipment in his hometown of Peshawar and travels to Iran regularly for supplies.

He had been in Tehran for a week when the first Israeli missiles fell on Friday. He had to make the journey home by road because the airspace is now closed. Pakistan has also shut its border crossings with Iran to all except Pakistanis wanting to return home.

“We saw drones, red lights of anti-aircraft guns and I spotted one building catch fire,” he said.

‘Offering prayer’

Mohammad Asif, a lawyer from Lahore, heard about the air strikes while on a pilgrimage in Qom.

He said that initially, he wasn’t afraid, and continued his pilgrimage to Mashhad in the country’s northeast.

That was until Israeli strikes hit the airport in Mashhad, nearly 1,000 kilometres from the Pakistani border.

Samreen Ali was also in Mashhad. Like Asif, she too cut her trip short and returned with her husband and 15-year-old son.

She was praying in a mosque in Mashhad when Israel struck the city. She then noticed she wasn’t receiving messages on her phone and assumed that “communication was being restricted... because of the war”.

Syed Saqib, 46, was in Qom and had to travel 500 kilometres (310 miles) by bus southeast to Yazd.

“We had to take alternative routes, spend an entire night waiting at a bus terminal,” Saqib said.

They then boarded buses to Zahedan, a city near the border with Pakistan’s Balochistan province. A relieved Saqib recalled making the border crossing at Taftan, surrounded by families carrying heavy luggage.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2025