A new batch of some 640 Pakistanis deported by Oman arrived here on Tuesday, raising to 35,000 the number expelled by the Gulf state for illegal entry over the past four years, officials said. The deportees, mostly illiterate people from low income rural families, came back to Pakistan by boat and were allowed to go to their homes after brief interrogation by immigration officials.
Their return was arranged by a local welfare group, the Ansar Burney Trust, which said many were lured by local people smugglers known as travel agents for jobs abroad. Many of them were in bad shape.