ISLAMABAD: Another 93 Pakistani nationals evacuated from Sudan arrived at the Islamabad International Airport on Monday morning, the Foreign Office (FO) said.

Following their arrival, state-run Radio Pakistan reported that “636 stranded Pakistanis have returned home via Jeddah on five special flights till date”.

It quoted the foreign office as saying that “all of the nearly 1,000 Pakistanis will be evacuated from Sudan in the next 24-48 hours”.

Minister for Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Sajjid Hussain Turi and Adviser to Prime Minister Amir Muqam received the Pakistani nationals at the airport, the news agency reported.

Radio Pakistan quoted Turi as saying that the total number of Pakistanis living in Sudan is around 1,200 — including the ones evacuated.

Meanwhile, Muqam said that the government would continue efforts to evacuate the rest of the stranded Pakistanis, adding that it was bearing all the expenses of their evacuation “from Sudan to their homes in Pakistan”.

In a tweet earlier today, the FO thanked the Saudi foreign ministry for facilitating the evacuation process: “We are grateful to the brotherly country of Saudi Arabia for their support and assistance to Pakistanis in distress in this difficult time.”

Late night on Sunday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement, saying that 36 Pakistanis had arrived in Jeddah via the Royal Saudi Air Force’s transport plane, and an unspecified number of Pakistanis had also arrived in a ship.

It stated, “The Kingdom worked to provide all the necessary needs for nationals of brotherly and friendly countries in preparation for facilitating their departure to their countries.”

The Saudi foreign ministry noted that it had evacuated a total of about 5,197 people — “184 Saudis and about 5,013 people belonging to 100 nationalities” — since the start of the evacuation process.