Foreign Office takes undue credit for evacuation

Private company clarifies it rescued Pakistani expatriates stuck in Libya.

KARACHI: The Foreign Office played no role in facilitating, rescuing or paying for the expenses of the 354 Pakistani expatriates from Libya who arrived in Lahore from Istanbul on Tuesday onboard two chartered Turkish Airlines flights.

While a press release from the FO on Monday night gave the impression that “two special chartered flights” were the initiative of Pakistan’s own foreign ministry, Vice President Sezai Türkes and Feyzi Akkaya (STFA) Construction Group Mustafa Karrakus clarified over a phone call from Istanbul that the 354 Pakistani expatriates were in fact employees of his company, who pleaded with the STFA to get them out since the Pakistani mission in Tripoli was doing nothing for them.

“Since they were our employees, we did everything we could on our own, including getting them out on our chartered planes without any help or directives from the Pakistani mission in Tripoli,” Karrakus said, adding that all the expenses of the trip, including boarding and lodging for a night in Istanbul, in addition to $250 for travelling allowance, were provided by his company.

STFA is billion-dollar Turkish conglomerate which does business globally and employs  people from diverse nationalities. Karrakus said a total of 379 Pakistani expatriates employed with the company were first evacuated from Tripoli via chartered airplanes to Istanbul and later flown to Lahore. He added that no more Pakistani nationals employed with the company were in Libya any longer.

Engineer Hassan Raza, who arrived back on the chartered plane, lambasted the Pakistani mission and the Foreign Office. “Do they even realise what the thousands of Pakistanis living in Libya are going through?” he questioned. He recalled how, despite repeated attempts to get in touch with the charge d’affaires, no one at the embassy had the decency to get back to his and many construction workers’ frantic pleas.

“We waited in despair for the Foreign Office to act,” said Raza, who was with his wife and one-year-old child in Libya. He said the situation there was terrifying with widespread looting and killing throughout the city. “Over 10,000 people from several nationalities were at the Tripoli airport and we got on to the plane only after each passenger paid 500 Libyan dinars as bribe to the officials there,” he said, adding that it was again the company that covered the expenses.

When FO spokesperson Tehmina Janjua was pressed regarding the ministry’s role in the evacuation process, she said the FO played a “key role” in “facilitating” the Pakistani expatriates. “Our embassy in Istanbul remained in contact with the passengers and we also set up special counters at the Lahore airport,” she said.

When asked whether any rescue mission from Pakistan would ever be sent, Janjua said “We are at an advanced stage of planning. We are looking into all sorts of possibilities, including evacuation by air or sea.”

However, Pakistan International Airline (PIA) spokesperson Mashood Tajwar said as of yet nothing has been communicated by the foreign ministry. “The airline is ready if asked to conduct a rescue mission,” he said. The Pakistan Airforce spokesperson said nobody in the institution knows anything about an evacuation plan. The Pakistan Navy spokesperson also said that there has been no official communication.

Meanwhile, two Pakistani citizens Ahsan Mohiuddin and Adnan, two engineers stranded in Tripoli continue to watch the horror unfold in their neighbourhood. Both said the Pakistani mission still hasn’t told them when or if at all they will be rescued. Mohiuddin, who fears stepping out of his apartment because of the curfew and sporadic gunfire, in an email to The Express Tribune, said: “We need help … quick!”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2011.