ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office said on Saturday its diplomatic mission in Tripoli got in touch with its nationals currently detained in Libyan jails and was making efforts for their prompt repatriation.
Local news networks in the country were abuzz with reports in recent weeks of a significant number of Pakistanis languishing in Libyan prisons while attempting to illegally reach European shores.
Driven by their pursuit of a better future, numerous individuals belonging to different countries have lost their lives while attempting perilous sea crossings on rickety boats from Libya and other places to reach European states in recent years.
“At the instructions of the Foreign Minister, our Charge d’affaires in Tripoli, Mr. Ashiq Ali, visited the detention center in Benghazi and met with detainees of Pakistani origin,” the foreign office spokesperson, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, said in response to media queries. “Food and basic necessities have been provided to them. Our Mission is in contact with the United Nations medical team for routine medical check-ups and provision of medicines to the detainees.”
“The Mission also remains contact with IOM [International Organization for Migration] for their early repatriation,” she added.
Estimates suggest at least 350 Pakistanis were among over 700 illegal migrants on a fishing vessel heading from Libya to Italy which sank off the coast of Greece on June 14.
Only 104 people survived the tragedy, prompting around 200 families in Pakistan to provide DNA samples to their country’s embassy in Greece to help identify the bodies of their loved ones among those recovered from the sea and kept in morgues.
The government subsequently launched a campaign against human traffickers who promise to send people to European countries.
