RAWALPINDI, Sept 13: More than 300 Pakistanis, deported from Turkey, arrived at Islamabad airport on two separate PIA commercial flights on Saturday, the immigration authorities said.

Of the 353 deportees, 275 people arrived from Istanbul on a PIA flight PK-702 and 59 on flight PK-762.

The eight deportees were from Rawalpindi, four from Lahore, one each from Karachi and Mianwali and three from Faisalabad and the rest from Gujranwala district.

Assistant Director Federal Investigation Agency FIA immigration Malik Omer Hayat told Dawn that all the deportees were allowed to go after investigation as they were not convicts.

Most of them were young boys aged between 14 and 25, who were arrested by Turkish authorities and deported.

“They were not convicts, but nearly 90 per cent of them were suffering form skin diseases,” Syed Arif Ali Bukhari a senior immigration official who had come from Gujranwla to receive the deportees said.

They had left the country in search of jobs. Their hopes were high that in Greece, doors of opportunity would open but their hopes were dashed and are back to square one.

They cry as they describe their ordeal. They said their illegal border crossing had brought nothing but hunger, danger and injuries and vowed that they say would not do it again.

They were worried about payment of the loans their family borrowed for their trip. But some of them were willing to try again.

“I don’t want to stay here because there is no job and better living condition in our own country,” Ikhtisham said. “Had I reached Greece, I would have had a chance to work and buy whatever I needed.”

For many of them who had paid Rs300,000 to Rs500,000 to agents, it was the first time they had ever been out of their city and on an airplane.

Safdar Iqbal, another deportee said he along with 100 other people was crammed into a truck by agents in Turkey and driven to border area to be pushed into Europe. He said they spent twelve days in jungle without food and drinking water.

Many of them fell fainted and were later caught by the police and put in the detention camp as they tried to take bath on a beach.