With 1,100 stranded students in China, Pakistan seeks to allay worried parents

ISLAMABAD: In a series of ongoing efforts, Pakistan’s government on Saturday set up a telephone hotline for distressed parents of students stranded in the locked down cities of coronavirus-hit China, the ministry of foreign affairs said on Saturday.
Around 1,100 Pakistani students have been stranded in Hubei province, with the majority present in the epicenter of the deadly viral outbreak- Wuhan city- since the lockdown was enforced on Jan. 23.
On Saturday, the fatality count reached 1,520 people, with more than 67,000 people affected globally.
“We have been noting down complaints and concerns of the parents and guardians of students stuck in Hubei, and trying to address them as quickly as possible,” Muhammad Uzair, Assistant Director for China at the foreign affairs ministry, told Arab News.
Two Pakistani diplomats from Beijing have reached Wuhan to assess the ground situation by interacting with students, he added.
“We, with the help of Chines authorities, are doing our best to provide all possible facilities to our students,” he said.
A government committee including Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza will hold a meeting with concerned parents on Wednesday to inform them about the measures taken so far to ensure the safety of the students in Hubei.
“Majority of the parents who have contacted us [Foreign Office] want the government to evacuate their loved ones from Wuhan city,” Uzair conceded, adding that these sentiments would be conveyed to relevant authorities.
After the viral outbreak, more than 20 countries moved to evacuate their citizens from China. But Pakistan’s government has refused to fly their nationals back home from the quarantined cities in a bid to avoid the spread of the virus. No case of the virus has so far been confirmed in the country so far, despite the two countries sharing a border. 
However, a mounting death toll has skyrocketed concerns, with many students from Wuhan and their parents in Pakistan pleading with the authorities for weeks to get an evacuation started in the locked down areas. 
“We have been waiting for the government to rescue us,” Tatheer Hussain, a student of medicine at Hubei University of Science and Technology, told Arab News.
“The situation is getting worse here with every passing day,” he said. “We are being made scapegoats at the expense of the Pak-China friendship.”
“Please be kind and have mercy on us,” Hussain pleased, and urged the government to rethink its decision, and fly Hubei’s holed-up Pakistani students home.