Misery, pain and grief of 10,000 stranded British Pakistanis

LONDON: Stranded British Pakistanis have appealed to both Pakistani and British governments to treat them with respect and pay attention to their worsening plight.

Many of them have shared their stories with The News after another PIA flight to London was cancelled on Monday, heaping more misery on them. The stranded Britons — who are estimated to be around 10,000 currently — opened up on their plight.

Dr Moin Naeem recently graduated from the University of Manchester and would be ideally working for the NHS to save lives, but he is stuck in Gujranwala with a family of eight including two kids, aged 4 and 1. He was visiting Pakistan to attend his sister’s wedding. Naeem said: “My family has many high-risk individuals; my father has a heart condition, my mother has rheumatoid arthritis which she is due to have an appointment for on the 21st April but will miss [it]. My sister is a severe asthmatic and is the highest risk individual. My two nieces aged 1- and 4-year-old also come into the high-risk category because of their age. The 4-year-old also has a kidney condition which means she can require specialist paediatric care at any time without warning. I have contacted the British embassy, my local MP in Manchester and have been active on Twitter in regards to this but I feel my voice and the voices of thousands more stranded here are falling on deaf ears.”

He added: “For eight of us including the children it means we need seven full tickets, even £750 per ticket means £5,250 on new tickets. Quite frankly, we do not have these funds and are having to rely on credit cards. All the promises on Twitter have been a massive failure because nearly three weeks after international flights were cancelled there are still thousands of British Pakistanis stranded here.”

Abdullah Sheikh and his parents purchased PIA return tickets to Pakistan. He said: “Our return flight on 28 March was cancelled so we rescheduled our flight to 11 April. On 9 April they cancelled again. Our flight back is now on 22 April but I won’t be surprised if it gets cancelled again ... so many people are feeling cheated.”

Rahat Inam went to Pakistan on March 5 through Turkish Airlines and was supposed to leave on March 23. She said: “Sadly due to the situation we are in, our flights were cancelled (Turkish Airlines) which were rebooked by them for the 18th. [They were] cancelled again and then rebooked again for 2nd May. We have had no help from the British government even though I’ve stressed to them that I’ve run out of medication. Medical stores haven’t had deliveries so they don’t stock much of the medication I need for my multiple sclerosis.

“We are in Mirpurkhas, Sindh — everything’s on lockdown so we can’t go out or do anything. The British government said originally they were going to pledge £75 million to help stranded British citizens, alas we are being ripped off but no one is helping us.”

Fatima Khan from Dundee is stranded in Attock. She flew to Pakistan through Emirates Airlines with her sister and two children. She said: “The Pakistani and UK governments are not helping at all. When they put special flights to the UK they are only going to England. What about the Scottish passengers who are stuck in Pakistan? Is Scotland not a part of UK? We feel we have been completely ignored and not classed as people.”

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan has been coordinating more than 1,400 UK nationals stranded in Pakistan due to Covid-19 closures. To her credit, she took the initiative of bringing the stranded families together and mounted a public campaign. She has called for the launch of chartered flights from Pakistan, but according to her, so far the British government has not paid attention. “I’ve spoken with cancer patients, diabetics, asthmatics, elderly people running out of life-saving medication that cannot be found in Pakistan. This is a health emergency.”

Faisal Aziz, his mother and sister are stuck in Jhelum. He said: “We didn’t get any communication from PIA regardless of emails and website — as advised by the FCO — never came up with anything. Yet they boast 22 flights.

Zahid Rather and his family are stuck in Samundari, Faisalabad. “We arrived in Pakistan on Emirates Airlines on 6th of March 2020 and were due to return on 3rd April. Unfortunately this was cancelled. We rebooked with Turkish Airlines for 24th April and this was cancelled too. We then tried to get on PIA special flights twice but didn’t have any luck. I am stuck with a family of eight: my mother, 75, who is diabetic; my wife, who is diabetic and my children.”

PIA’s spokesman Abdul Hafeez said in a statement: “PIA ran special flights apart from the regular flight operations which were cancelled. These flights were for those who had old tickets for PIA flights. Twenty-three regular flights go to the UK from Pakistan including 9 to Manchester every week.

“The previous flights have all been cancelled but after that, we received some special permission from the government to operate flights between 3 — 11 April. During that time, all flights operated, no flight was cancelled. It was completed on 12th April. Today there is a break. We have filed a new schedule to them today. If the schedule is approved, we will start flights from tomorrow. I want to make it clear that these are special flights, there are not regular scheduled flights. Only special flights are going, otherwise, entire flight operations in Pakistan have stopped. Only a few, limited flights are operating and no flight was cancelled among them.”