ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani embassy on Monday said it had closed its facilitation desk in Ukraine’s Lviv after 676 Pakistanis were evacuated from the Eastern European country after the Russian invasion.
Russian and Ukrainian officials met on Monday for their first talks since the outbreak of war last week, with Kyiv demanding an “immediate ceasefire” as the number of refugees fleeing the country hit more than 500,000.
As the delegations arrived for talks on the border between Belarus and Ukraine on day five of Moscow’s invasion, the Ukrainian presidency demanded the ceasefire “and the withdrawal of troops” — which Moscow is almost certain to reject.
The Pakistani embassy said it had been making efforts to evacuate all the remaining Pakistani nationals from Ukraine at the earliest.
“Since majority of Pakistanis in Ukraine have already been evacuated, therefore, Facilitation Desk at Lviv has been closed with effect from today,” the embassy said in a statement on Monday.
“At the moment, situation in Kharkiv is very precarious. As soon as the situation improves, rest of the students will be evacuated.”
There had been around 4,000 Pakistani community members and 3,000 students in Ukraine, majority of whom had already left the Eastern European country.
At present, around 100 Pakistanis were on their way to Ternopil, six in Lviv, nine in Ternopil and eight others were on way to the Ukraine-Hungary border, the embassy said.
On Sunday, the embassy asked Pakistani nationals to follow local rules and regulations after 15 students were arrested while trying to escape to Germany from Poland.
It said the evacuated students were getting a 15-day visa, adding they could not travel to any other country except their own.
