Their boat capsized off West Africa’s Atlantic shoreline, which has emerged as a major level of departure for migrants aiming to succeed in Europe.
A Spain-based migrant rights group, Strolling Borders, mentioned that fifty individuals had died on their solution to the Canary Islands and that 44 of them had been Pakistanis. The group mentioned that the migrants started their journey on Jan. 2.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari expressed grief over the deaths, as did Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif , and burdened the necessity for strict measures to curb human trafficking.
Pakistan mentioned on Thursday it had been knowledgeable by its embassy in Morocco {that a} boat carrying 80 passengers, together with some Pakistanis, had set off from Mauritania and capsized close to Dakhla, a Moroccan-controlled port metropolis within the disputed Western Sahara.
Nearly all of the Pakistanis who had been on the boat had been from cities within the japanese Punjab province. Family members had been gathering on the properties of the victims as a few of the survivors had been now in touch with their households, officers say.
In Dhola, a village in Gujrat district in Punjab, Ahsan Shehzad mentioned that his son, Sufyan Ali, died when the boat capsized. He mentioned that his son despatched a voice message to his cellphone by which he mentioned that the boat by which they had been touring was already overcrowded and 25 different individuals had forcibly boarded it.
He urged the federal government to make efforts to repatriate the physique of his son and a nephew who additionally died.
Mourners additionally gathered in Jurah, one other village in Gujrat, the place Muhammad Akram mentioned that he misplaced his son, Abu Bakar, within the boat capsizing. He mentioned that he paid thousands and thousands of rupees to a human trafficker to ship his son overseas. He mentioned his son went to Morocco by airplane, and he did not know that Bakar could be put in a ship for his subsequent journey.
In Daska, a metropolis within the Punjab, the household of two males mentioned they needed to promote property to rearrange thousands and thousands of rupees to pay human traffickers to ship Arslan Ahmed and Mohammad Arfan to Europe looking for good jobs.
Ahmed’s mom mentioned that though she had heard from the kinfolk of a few of the survivors that her son was alive, she was nonetheless unable to contact him. Razia Bibi, the mom of Arfan, urged authorities to hint her son and produce him again.
Hundreds of thousands of individuals migrate to Europe every year, the overwhelming majority utilizing authorized and common means. Fewer than 240,000 individuals crossed borders into the continent with out papers final yr, based on the European Union’s border company Frontex.
As authorities have labored to stop migration and smuggling from nations within the Mediterranean Sea, extra harmful routes have turn out to be more and more used. Frontex reported greater than 50,000 migrants made the journey from northwest Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands in 2024, together with 178 Pakistanis.
Strolling Borders mentioned in a report final week that 9,757 individuals had died or gone lacking attempting to cross to the islands, calling the route “the deadliest on the planet.”
The islands are roughly 105 kilometres from the closest level in Africa, however to keep away from safety forces, many migrants try longer journeys that may take days or even weeks. The bulk final yr departed from Mauritania, which is a minimum of 762 kilometres from the closest Canary Island, El Hierro.
Pakistan’s International Ministry mentioned a number of survivors, together with Pakistanis, are staying in a camp close to Dakhla. Pakistan’s Embassy in Morocco is in contact with native authorities and officers have gone to Dakhla to assist survivors, based on a ministry assertion.
The ministry did not say what number of Pakistanis had died. Officers on the ministry weren’t instantly obtainable for touch upon Friday.
ADVERTISEMENTLots of of Pakistanis die yearly whereas attempting to succeed in Europe by land and sea with the assistance of human smugglers.
In 2023, an estimated 350 Pakistanis had been on board an overcrowded fishing boat carrying migrants that sank off Greece. Many perished in what was one of many deadliest incidents within the Mediterranean Sea.
Pakistan says it has launched a crackdown on human traffickers.
