KARACHI: Shafait Ali, 18, was among scores of migrants who were aboard the ill-fated ship that sank off the coast of Greece last Wednesday. His cousin Mubashir Ali Sultani, finding it hard to break the tragic news to Ali’s elderly mother, has told her instead that her son is hospitalized and will regain consciousness in a few days.
Several families and relatives are afflicted with the same conundrum in the villages surrounding Khuraitta Town in Kotli city of Azad Kashmir, one half of the disputed Himalayan Kashmir region which is administered by Pakistan.
Tragedy unfolded on Wednesday when a trawler carrying an estimated 750 migrants mostly from Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria capsized and sank off Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula. Greek authorities say 78 people have been killed while 104 have been rescued.
The search for hundreds, however, is still going on.
“Death is an excruciating reality that time gradually eases, but imagine the pain of not having a tangible body to bid farewell to, leaving the family in an indescribably agonizing situation,” Sultani told Arab News over the phone.
Sultani said Ali had departed in March, four days after his sister had passed away. “Everyone in the village is aggrieved,” he added.
Millions in Pakistan are finding it difficult to make ends meet in the South Asian country after tough fiscal measures by the government led to considerable hikes in fuel and food prices.
Every year, thousands of young Pakistanis embark on perilous journeys attempting to enter Europe illegally in search of a better life.
Various local and international media reports have said hundreds of Pakistanis were on board the ill-fated ship. According to a report in The Guardian, Pakistani nationals were confined to “below the deck” where the chances of survival in case the ship capsized were minimum and were harshly treated by the ship crew when they tried to come up for fresh water.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry has said that of the 78 who survived, 12 are Pakistani nationals. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a “Day of Mourning” across the country on Monday and ordered a strict crackdown against agents involved in providing Pakistani migrants passage to the battered vessel.
Sharif has also formed a four-member committee to investigate the incident and provide recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future.
Alam Shinwari, a senior official and focalperson for Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said multiple raids have been carried out and several individuals were arrested.
“Investigations have been initiated to determine whether these individuals have any connection to the tragic incident involving the boat in Greece,” Shinwari told Arab News.
The FIA official said the agency was gathering details from families across Pakistan about their missing relatives. However, he acknowledged that interacting with traumatized families posed significant challenges.
“As of now, we are aware that 12 survivors are of Pakistani nationality. To accurately identify Pakistanis among the victims, an extensive and laborious process is currently underway, involving the collection of DNA samples,” Shinwari said, adding that the exact figures of the Pakistanis who boarded the ship are still not known.
Locals and families of the victims, however, fear that the number of casualties could be much more.
Kazim Ilyas, a social activist from Gujrat city in Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, told Arab News that 11 youngsters were from the Noor Jamal village of the Gujrat district. They have been missing since the shipwreck.
“Most of the families I know had been informed before they [victims] embarked upon their journey but there is no contact now,” Ilyas said.
“Families in the surrounding villages of Khuiratta have confirmed that around 50 of their relatives were onboard the ill-fated boat,” Sultani said, adding that many of the migrants were people who risked their lives to seek a better future in Europe.
Sultani said that while it was important to arrest agents who helped Pakistani migrants enter Europe illegally, he said the deteriorating economic conditions of the country had eroded people’s trust in the system.
“Our economic condition is taking these lives, those responsible for economic deterioration are responsible for these deaths,” he said.
