159 Pakistanis stuck in China call for evacuation.

KARACHI -- A group of nearly 150 Pakistani nationals stuck at an airport in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang for the past four days amidst the coronavirus outbreak have appealed to the government in Islamabad to evacuate them back home.

The Pakistani citizens, most of whom are students, have been trapped at the airport in Urmqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, for several days as the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak spreading in China rose to 213 and the World Health Organisation called it a global health emergency.

They can neither leave the airport because many of them have reached the expiry of their visas, nor can they fly home due to Pakistan's suspension of its flights to and from China in the wake of the outbreak.

Tariq Rauf, a PhD scholar from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Shangla district who was studying in China, in a video message sent to Dawn.com, said that members of the Pakistani community were stuck in Urmqi because their flight to Pakistan had been cancelled.

With other Pakistani nationals and children appearing in the video, Rauf said the visas of many of them had expired and they were told to remain inside the airport.

'For how long will we stay here?' he questioned, adding that many people were already running out of money. He said Pakistani nationals had to fend for themselves while at the airport, sleeping on benches and purchasing food using their own money.

Rauf said Pakistani students were returning home after completing their degrees and they could not return to their universities because of the expiry of their visas and because they had handed over their accommodations to the varsities' administrations. He said the uncertain situation was creating difficulties for them...