ISLAMABAD: More than 40 Pakistanis are feared to have drowned in the capsizing of a boat off West Africa’s Atlantic coastline, which has emerged as a primary point of departure for migrants aiming to reach Europe.
President Asif Ali Zardari expressed grief over the deaths and stressed the need for strict measures to curb human trafficking.
Zardari’s comments in a statement late Thursday came after a Spain-based migrant rights group, Walking Borders, said 50 people had died on their way to the Canary Islands and that 44 of them were Pakistanis. The group said the migrants began their journey on Jan. 2.
Pakistan said it had been informed by its embassy in Morocco that a boat carrying 80 passengers, including some Pakistanis, had set off from Mauritania and capsized near Dakhla, a Moroccan-controlled port city in the disputed Western Sahara.
Millions of people migrate to Europe each year, the vast majority using legal and regular means. Less than 240,000 people crossed borders into the continent without papers last year, according to the European Union’s border agency Frontex.
As authorities have worked to prevent migration and smuggling from countries in the Mediterranean Sea, more dangerous routes have become increasingly used. Frontex reported more than 50,000 migrants made the journey from northwest Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands in 2024, including 178 Pakistanis.
Walking Borders said in a report last week that 9,757 people had died or gone missing trying to cross to the islands, calling the route “the deadliest in the world.”
The islands are roughly 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the closest point in Africa, but to avoid security forces, many migrants attempt longer journeys that can take days or weeks. The majority last year departed from Mauritania, which is at least 473 miles (762 kilometers) from the closest Canary Island, El Hierro.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said several survivors, including Pakistanis, are staying in a camp near Dakhla. Pakistan’s Embassy in Morocco is in touch with local authorities and officials have gone to Dakhla to help survivors, according to a ministry statement.
The ministry did not say how many Pakistanis had died. Officials at the ministry were not immediately available for comment on Friday.
Hundreds of Pakistanis die every year while trying to reach Europe by land and sea with the help of human smugglers.
In 2023, an estimated 350 Pakistanis were on board an overcrowded fishing boat carrying migrants that sank off Greece. Many perished in what was one of the deadliest incidents in the Mediterranean Sea.
Pakistan says it has launched a crackdown on human traffickers.
Over 40 Pakistanis feared dead in migrant boat disaster off African coast
https://arab.news/6gsqc
Over 40 Pakistanis feared dead in migrant boat disaster off African coast
- Hundreds of Pakistanis die every year while trying to reach Europe by land and sea
- In 2023, nearly 350 Pakistanis were on board a fishing boat that capsized near Greece
Imran Khan not a ‘national security threat,’ ex-PM’s party responds to Pakistan military
- Pakistan’s military spokesperson on Friday described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat”
- PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan says words used by military spokesperson for Khan were “not appropriate”
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Saturday responded to allegations by Pakistan military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry from a day earlier, saying that he was not a “national security threat.”
Chaudhry, who heads the military’s media wing as director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), spoke to journalists on Friday, in which he referred to Khan as a “mentally ill” person several times during the press interaction. Chaudhry described Khan’s anti-army narrative as a “national security threat.”
The military spokesperson was responding to Khan’s social media post this week in which he accused Chief of Defense Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir of being responsible for “the complete collapse of the constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.”
“The people of Pakistan stand with Imran Khan, they stand with PTI,” the party’s secretary-general, Salman Akram Raja, told reporters during a news conference.
“Imran Khan is not a national security threat. Imran Khan has kept the people of this country united.”
Raja said there were several narratives in the country, including those that created tensions along ethnic and sectarian lines, but Khan had rejected all of them and stood with one that the people of Pakistan supported.
PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan, flanked by Raja, criticized the military spokesperson as well, saying his press talk on Thursday had “severely disappointed” him.
“The words that were used [by the military spokesperson] were not appropriate,” Gohar said. “Those words were wrong.”
‘NATURAL OUTCOME’
Speaking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif defended the military spokesperson’s remarks against Khan.
“When this kind of language is used for individuals as well as for institutions, then a reaction is a natural outcome,” he said.
“The same thing is happening on the Twitter accounts being run in his [Khan’s] name. If the DG ISPR has given any reaction to it, then I believe it was a very measured reaction.”
Khan, who was ousted after a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, blames the country’s powerful military for removing him from power by colluding with his political opponents. Both deny the allegations.
The former prime minister, who has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, also alleges his party was denied victory by the army and his political rivals in the 2024 general election through rigging.
The army and the government both deny his allegations.
