Country mourns
Greece boat
tragedy
As families of victims of the migrant boat tragedy that unfolded off the Greek coast struggle to come to terms with the reality that their loved ones may not return, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced a high-level investigation to trace the human traffickers behind the incident.
The National Day of Mourning was observed all over the country including Balochistan on Monday. The national flag flied at half-mast at all important government buildings showing mourning and expressing grief and sorrow over the most tragic incident of recent times faced the country. Special prayers would be offered for the deceased.
The pain of these families is being aggravated by ‘illegal agents’, who have been claiming that their relatives are, in fact, alive, without providing any evidence to corroborate their claims.
According to family members talked to a section of press, these traffickers charged more than Rs2 million from each individual in return for their illegal passage to Europe.
At least 400 Pakistanis, 200 Egyptians and 150 Syrians, including around two dozen Syrian women and young children, were travelling on the trawler, according to the initial information shared by survivors of the shipwreck.
Needless to mention here is that more than 100 people lost their lives and hundreds remain missing after the ship sank off the coast of Greece on Wednesday.
After the tragic accident, 27-year-old Kashif, who had left Sialkot about a month ago for Italy after paying more than Rs2.3 million to an agent, lost contact with his family. Around the same time, the agent also went off the grid.
According to the official sources, ironically, the heirs of boat tragedy victims have still been hoping for the safe return of their loved ones, as several human traffickers are trying to satisfy them that their loved ones were not travelling on the boat and would come into contact with their families soon.
Since the identification process was still underway amid a state of uncertainty, the heirs were inclined to believe in the claims of traffickers, the official added.
As of now, 12 Pakistanis – five from Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin and Gujrat and three to four from to Sialkot– are among the survivors who have narrated harrowing tales to the media from a relief camp in Greece. Most of the Pakistanis primarily belonged to these rural areas of central Punjab and Kotli in Azad Kashmir.
From Punjab, a majority belonged to Goleki village in Gujrat and Sialkot’s Jamke Cheema village, as unconfirmed reports suggested that at least 200 people hailing from Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin were on the boat.
Family sources of most of the victims belonging to Gujrat, Sialkot and Mandi Bahauddin districts said that they had paid at least Rs2.5 million to secure passage to Italy.
Meanwhile, the FIA was approached by the brother of a survivor in Gujrat who had lodged a complaint against an alleged agent, who is not in Pakistan like many other traffickers.
FIA officials claimed that heirs were reluctant to file complaints against traffickers, citing it as a reason for a lack of progress.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed a committee for a probe into the trafficking, as he declared mourning on account of the boat tragedy.
The four-member committee would submit a report in a week. “The number of casualties is being still ascertained,” an official statement said.
The inquiry committee would ascertain facts of the boat tragedy and identify loopholes in the enforcement mechanism that exposed Pakistanis to the “vagaries of human trafficking in this particular case”.
The body would also focus on international coordination to prevent and penalise human smuggling and would prepare “short-and long-term recommendations” to apprehend culprits.
Obviously, those found guilty in the tragic incident particularly involved in the illicit human smuggling must be taken to task breaking their network instantly.
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