ISLAMABAD: The bodies of fifteen Pakistanis identified as having died in a migrant shipwreck off the coast of Greece in June will start arriving in Pakistan this week, the foreign office said on Monday, as authorities continue to chase human traffickers behind increasing illegal migration attempts to Europe.
The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on June 14. There were 104 survivors out of a total of at least 750 illegal migrants on the overcrowded boat, a majority of them from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt.
Pakistan has estimated over 350 of its nationals were on the fishing vessel while around 200 families have given DNA samples to the Pakistan embassy in Greece to help identify the bodies of family members being kept at morgues there.
Among the 15 Pakistanis identified thus far, six are from Gujrat, four from Gujranwala, and one each is from Sheikhupura, Rawalpindi, Mirpur Azad Kashmir, Vehari and Mandi Bahuddin districts.
“A total of fifteen bodies of Pakistanis have been identified so far through the DNA of their families, and their transportation to Pakistan will start in the next three to four days,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told Arab News.
“There is a whole procedure to follow before transporting the bodies from Greece to Pakistan, like embalming of the bodies, so we are working on it,” she said. “Once all the official procedures are completed, the bodies would start arriving on the first available flights.”
About the possibility of more DNA matches, she said the Pakistan embassy in Greece was looking into the issue “carefully” and “if there are more DNA matches, the families in Pakistan would be informed accordingly.”
Pakistanis have increasingly been making perilous sea journeys to Europe in recent months to escape skyrocketing inflation, joblessness and other economic hardships. From the district of Gujrat alone, at least 90 people left home on April 15, flying from Islamabad airport to Karachi and onwards to Dubai, Egypt, and finally Libya, from where they boarded the doomed vessel in June.
Many of the Pakistani migrants were also from Azad Kashmir, each paying around $7,000 to traffickers to make the ill-fated voyage.
Among the 90 people from Gujrat were brothers Muhammad Tahir and Qaisar, with Tahir’s body recently having been identified through the DNA of his mother.
The Pakistan embassy in Greece had informed the family that Tahir’s body had been found, his son told Arab News.
“We feel lucky that body of our father has been found from the depths of the sea,” Muhammad Tayyab said in a telephone interview. “We will bury him with our own hands now and this will give us patience to bear the loss.”
“The embassy has informed us through a phone call that the body of our father will be reaching Islamabad airport this week,” he added.
Other Pakistani families are still waiting to hear from authorities about the whereabouts of their loved ones.
“We are going through constant agony since the boat capsized as we are still waiting to hear from authorities about our cousin,” Mubashir Ali, a relative of 18-year-old victim Inam Shafait, told Arab News, saying Shafait’s parents had provided authorities with DNA samples.
“His parents, four sisters and two brothers along with other relatives and friends have been praying for his safe recovery, but we know he is no more in this world.”
Meanwhile, the government has continued its crackdown against traffickers, with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) having arrested over three dozen smugglers since the shipwreck, mostly from Gujrat and Kashmir regions.
“The FIA has been doing its best to bust the network of human smugglers,” FIA spokesperson Abdul Ghafoor told Arab News.
“It is a crime against humanity and the FIA will not tolerate it.”
