The Pakistani consulate in Dubai has notified Islamabad that visiting Pakistanis must have a valid work visa, AED 5,000, and a return ticket when traveling to the UAE.
The announcement follows the deportation of 80 Pakistanis found with fake return tickets and on other grounds.
The consulate wrote to the Foreign Office on Saturday, stating that the entry of these persons to the UAE has been turned down for miscellaneous reasons, and it urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to inform Pakistani passengers seeking work in the UAE to obtain a valid work visa.
The letter detailed that people traveling to the Gulf state must have credible round-trip tickets, a valid visa, and AED 5,000 with them.
The consulate staff had received a query from a traveler at Dubai Airport, after which it went to the airport and they discovered that the UAE immigration authorities had turned away about 80 Pakistanis for several reasons. They included 40 Pakistanis who were returned to Pakistan on the same flight that they had taken to Dubai, and the other half were sent back on different available flights.
Most of them reportedly informed the UAE immigration agents that they had arrived in the UAE on visit visas to find work. The latter clarified that the Pakistani citizens had been deported for possessing visit visas instead of work visas, dummy return tickets, and insufficient cash to sustain themselves.
The Pakistani mission stated that it had requested the UAE immigration authorities to allow Pakistani passport holders with valid visas entry into the UAE, but that entry was denied for the reasons above. However, the Emirati authorities maintained that they must all have valid return tickets and a minimum of AED 5,000 in cash in this regard.