At least 1,500 deportees have been languishing at the deportation centre in Saudi Arabia because of travel-cost issue.

Reportedly, the aviation authorities took up the matter with the ministries concerned to get them back home,

Last month, 160 deportees were sent back by a Saudi airline plane at Karachi where their health declaration cards were scanned thoroughly while getting them queued up. 

In a Sensate session, Foreign Affairs Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi submitted in the Senate a list of Pakistanis who have been deported from Saudi Arabia in the past five years.

According to the state-run APP news agency, the numbers were presented in the Senate in response to a query from Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldin.

A total of 285,980 Pakistanis have been deported from Riyadh and Jeddah between 2015 and 2019.  Of these, 61,076 people were sent back from Riyadh and 224,904 from Jeddah.

According to Qureshi, these people were deported because of expired visas, performing Haj without permission, being involved in drug trafficking, overstaying in Saudi Arabia after arriving on an Umrah visa, quarrelling and other offences.