KARACHI: Pakistani immigration authorities apprehended a human trafficker involved in a shipwreck near Benghazi, Libya that claimed lives of seven Pakistani immigrants this year, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said on Saturday.
At least 73 migrants went missing and presumed dead after their boat sank off the Libyan coast in February, according to the United Nations (UN) International Organization for Migration.
Pakistani officials arrested the suspect involved in the shipwreck from the Karachi airport while attempting to board a flight to Azerbaijan.
“The arrested suspect was involved in illegally sending many Pakistanis to Libya,” an FIA spokesperson said in a statement.
“The suspect had been underground for the last several months and attempted to flee to Azerbaijan via an international flight.”
The suspected human traffickers already had a case registered against him in the FIA’s Anti-Human Smuggling Circle in Gujrat, according to the spokesperson.
He has been handed over to FIA Gujrat officials.
Every year, hundreds of Pakistanis, among other people from poorer nations, attempt to cross into Europe and developed countries in search of a better future and living conditions.
Many of them perish on the way while undertaking a dangerous journey, often facilitated by human traffickers.
Also in February, several Pakistanis died in a boat wreck off Italy that killed nearly a hundred people.
The wooden migrant boat had set off from Western Turkiye with around 180 people aboard, but smashed apart in stormy weather off the shore of Calabria in Italy’s southern toe.
Eighty people survived the disaster.
