Islamabad, May 21 (INP): The High Commissioner for Pakistan Babar Amin, held video conference with the Pakistani community from New South Wales.

Officers of the Pakistan High Commission Canberra, and Consulate General at Sydney were also present during the conference. This was the second such Videoconference with the Pakistani diaspora in New South Wales in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, says a message received here on Thursday from Canberra.

The High Commissioner briefed the community members about the ongoing efforts of the High Commission and the Consulates General at Sydney and Melbourne to coordinate and mitigate the problems being faced by the Pakistani diaspora in Australia in keeping with the policy outlined by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

He informed the participants that the High Commission was in touch with authorities in Australia and Pakistan to look after the interest of the Community in these difficult times. He also enumerated the steps being taken to repatriate the Pakistanis stranded in Australia, which, included the coordination for arranging repatriation flights.

One repatriation flight had already been sent off from Melbourne and efforts were being made to have more non-scheduled commercial flights to repatriate our community.  He emphasized that the Government of Pakistan was making all possible efforts to help the overseas community get through this pandemic. The issues of the Pakistani international students in Australia were discussed at length in this interactive session.

The Community members apprised about the relief activities being carried out by them individually and through their organizations. These included providing food hampers, job support, rent facilitation, health care, counselling and legal services etc., to the Pakistanis.

The High Commissioner highly lauded the Pakistani community for showing unity, resolve and high standards of philanthropy. He expressed full confidence that Pakistanis in Australia would continue to carry themselves as model citizens during and after the lockdown in Australia bring further good name to the country.

The Pakistani community members appreciated the Pakistani Missions in Australia for inculcating a sense of togetherness and harmonizing persuasion of the common objective.

INP/JAVED