Ukraine-Russia conflict: PIA plane leaves for Poland to evacuate stranded Pakistanis

• Government sends chartered PIA plane to Poland to repatriate stranded Pakistani students and families.
• Flight will bring around 300 Pakistanis home.
• PK7788 will land back in Islamabad with stranded Pakistanis.

ISLAMABAD: A chartered Pakistan International Airline (PIA) plane left for Poland to to repatriate Pakistanis stranded in Warsaw due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, announced the national carrier in a tweet. 

"PIA, in coordination with Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Government of Pakistan, has dispatched a special repatriation flight to Warsaw, Poland to bring back stranded countrymen from war-hit Ukraine," tweeted the airline after  the plane had departed from Pakistan.

PIA said that PK7788, the flight number, will return to Islamabad with the stranded Pakistanis today.

The plane is expected to land at 10 am local time in Warsaw and will bring around 300 Pakistanis home who were displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

When the crisis began on February 24, there were around 7,000 Pakistanis in Ukraine (community 4,000, students 3,000), the majority of whom had already departed the country on the advise of the Pakistan Embassy.

According to the Pakistani mission to the UN, since February 24, the Pakistani embassy in Ukraine has evacuated 1,525 Pakistanis to neighbouring Poland, Romania and Hungary.

Russia invasion

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two which has created 1.7 million refugees, a raft of sanctions on Moscow, and fears of wider conflict as the West pours military aid into Ukraine.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.