ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Embassy in Ukraine said on Friday it had evacuated 98 percent of its nationals from the country amid an intensifying Russian invasion, saying an estimated 30 Pakistanis were still stuck in areas of “intense fight”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine late February after which the Pakistan Embassy in Ukraine started evacuating its citizens. Russian forces have continued to pound Ukrainian cities since.
“The Embassy of Pakistan Ukraine has safely evacuated 98 percent Pakistanis from Ukraine,” the Pakistani embassy in Ukraine tweeted, adding that an estimated 30 nationals were still stranded.
In a subsequent tweet, the embassy said it had called on both sides to open a humanitarian corridor so that stranded Pakistanis could be evacuated safely.
An estimated 3,000 Pakistani nationals were in Ukraine when Russia invaded the country, according to Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
The Russian invasion has drawn sharp rebuke from many countries around the world, raising alarm the attack could trigger a wider conflict. This is the largest attack by one state on another in Europe since World War II.