More than 40 Pakistanis feared drowned in the capsizing of a migrant boat off African coast
ISLAMABAD (AP) — More than 40 Pakistanis were 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 that 50 people had died on their way to the Canary Islands and that 44 of them were Pakistanis. The group said that the migrants began their journey on Jan. 2.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also expressed his sorrow over the deaths.
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.
Almost all the Pakistanis who were on the boat were from cities in the eastern Punjab province. Relatives were gathering at the homes of the victims as some of the survivors were now in contact with their families, officials say.
In Dhola, a village in Gujrat district in Punjab, Ahsan Shehzad said that his son, Sufyan Ali, died when the boat capsized. He said that his son sent a voice message to his cellphone in which he said that the boat in which they were traveling was already overcrowded and 25 other people had forcibly boarded it.
He urged the government to make efforts to repatriate the body of his son and a nephew who also died.
Mourners also gathered in Jurah, another village in Gujrat, where Muhammad Akram said that he lost his son, Abu Bakar, in the boat capsizing. He said that he paid millions of rupees to a human trafficker to send his son abroad. He said his son went to Morocco by plane, and he didn't know that Bakar would be put in a boat for his next journey.
In Daska, a city in the Punjab, the family of two men said they had to sell property to arrange millions of rupees to pay human traffickers to send Arslan Ahmed and Mohammad Arfan to Europe in search of good jobs.
Ahmed's mother said that although she had heard from the relatives of some of the survivors that her son was alive, she was still unable to contact him. Razia Bibi, the mother of Arfan, urged authorities to trace her son and bring him back.
Millions of people migrate to Europe each year, the vast majority using legal and regular means. Fewer 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 didn't say how many Pakistanis had died. Officials at the ministry weren't 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.
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Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, and Babar Dogar in Lahore, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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