COVID-19: Over 24,000 stranded Pakistanis repatriated under special flight operations.

ISLAMABAD -- Amid the coronavirus crisis, a whooping number of nationals still remain stuck on foreign shores due to closure of international regular flight operations across the world. But, the silver lining is that the government of Pakistan rose to the challenge and took lead in starting relief flight operations for evacuation of its citizens from multiple countries.

'As of May 13, at least 24,500 stranded Pakistanis have been repatriated from various countries under the special repatriation operation, announced by the government after halting the international flights in March end to curb the coronavirus spread in the country,' a senior officer of the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development told reporter on Thursday.

He said the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis was being carried out in phases. Laid off Pakistani workers, students and people with expired visas were given top priority during the repatriation process, he added.

Giving breakup, the officer said most of the repatriated citizens were from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as it always remained a top destination for Pakistani workers. Till May 13, over 9,100 nationals were brought to Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 1300 from Qatar, 1,000 from Saudi Arabia, 600 Oman, 227 Bahrain and 150 from Iraq.

He said the government had also made arrangements for airlifting the Pakistanis from other countries like the United Kingdom from where it brought back some 3,000 nationals.

The officer said initially, the country's bandwidth for...