Over 460 stranded Pakistanis return from Afghanistan

A total of 462 Pakistanis stranded in Afghanistan have returned via the Torkham border crossing, taking the total number of returnees to 1,632 so far, the media reported on Sunday.

Shamsul Islam, focal person for the return of stranded Pakistanis, told Dawn news on Saturday that more stranded Pakistanis were expected to come back via the Torkham border in the coming days.

However, the exact number of the remaining Pakistanis, he said, was not yet known.

Islam said the ones who had arrived on Saturday comprised 379 men, 47 women and 60 children.

Meanwhile, a statement issued from the office of the Khyber deputy commissioner on Saturday said that as many 1,501 persons returned earlier from Afghanistan were kept in different quarantine centres of Khyber district, Dawn news reported.

It said that tests on swab samples of at least 1,135 were conducted till April 24 out of which 83 Pakistanis who had recently returned from Afghanistan and 11 locals had tested positive for novel coronavirus, while 835 had no symptoms of the virus.

Results of 165 were awaited while the district administration had so far admitted 63 affected persons to the isolation wards of local hospitals.