Islamabad, Pakistan – Rehan Aslam’s people ran a delivery and automobile condominium industry, and grocery shops. Rehan helped run the ones companies.
However 5 months in the past, the 34-year-old offered his automobile, a Toyota Hiace wagon, for 4.5 million rupees ($16,000) to pay an agent who would backup him drop in the back of his existence in his village, Jora, in Gujrat district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, looking for a month in Europe.
He by no means made it.
Rehan, a father of 2 women and a boy, used to be amongst 86 folk who onboard a passenger boat on January 2 related Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in West Africa, aiming for the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa managed via Spain.
Stranded at sea for greater than 13 days, the vessel used to be ultimately rescued via Moroccan government – with most effective 36 survivors on board. Rabia Kasuri, Pakistan’s performing ambassador to Morocco, showed that a minimum of 65 Pakistanis had been on board the boat: of them, 43 had been lifeless, era 22 survived.
Rehan used to be amongst those that died.
“He just wanted to get to Europe somehow. That was his dream, and he told us not to create any obstacles in his way,” Mian Ikram Aslam, Rehan’s elder brother, informed Al Jazeera. “All he wanted was to seek better opportunities outside Pakistan for his three children.”
Pakistan’s Ministry of International Affairs introduced on Saturday that it will repatriate the 22 survivors of the new boat hit off the coast of Morocco, however there’s modest closure at the horizon for the households of those that died.
In lieu, the tragedy has left in its wake a order of questions. How did the folk at the boat die? Why had been they travelling to Europe from West Africa – an not going and unutilized course for abnormal Pakistani migrants?
And why had been folk like Rehan, from households with some monetary steadiness, risking their lives to get to Europe within the first playground?
‘Tortured to death’
This incident at the Western Mediterranean course comes simply weeks later 4 alternative vessels sank within the central Mediterranean in December endmost 12 months. In the ones tragedies, 200 folk had been rescued, however just about 50 had been reported lifeless or lacking, together with a minimum of 40 Pakistanis.
One of the crucial deadliest shipwrecks within the Mediterranean befell in June 2023, when greater than 700 folk, together with just about 300 Pakistanis, died later the Adriana, an getting old fishing trawler, capsized related the Greek island of Pylos.
Within the actual incident, the Pakistani International Ministry first of all introduced on January 16 that the boat had “capsized” related Dakhla, a port town within the disputed Western Sahara range managed via Morocco. However households of the sufferers declare their family members had been “beaten” and “tortured” prior to being thrown overboard.
Press Let fall
Incident of boat capsizing off the coast of Morocco pic.twitter.com/0ZNvrjWf4m
— Ministry of International Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) January 16, 2025
Aslam, 49, stated survivors from his village reported that pirates on any other boat attacked them, stole their property and assaulted passengers with hammers prior to throwing some into the ocean.
“We were able to talk with some of the surviving boys in Dakhla, who shared how pirates repeatedly attacked their boat for a week, torturing and throwing people overboard,” he stated.
A matching account used to be shared via Chaudhry Ahsan Gorsi, a businessman from Dhola village related Gujrat town in Punjab province.
Gorsi misplaced his nephews, Atif Shehzad and Sufyan Ali, who paid 3.5 million rupees ($12,500) to brokers to facilitate their travel. Survivors knowledgeable him concerning the brutal cases in their deaths.
“These boys sold their land to raise the money and left last August,” Gorsi informed Al Jazeera. “But I could never have imagined they would meet such a gruesome fate – physically attacked, tortured and thrown into the water,” he stated.
Following the rescue of the boat endmost moment, the Pakistani executive despatched an investigation staff to Rabat to probe the allegations. Then again, their file has no longer but been made family.
“We are still conducting our investigation and have interviewed the survivors about their experiences,” Rabia Kasuri, Pakistan’s performing ambassador to Morocco, informed Al Jazeera from Rabat, the place she has served for the pace two years. Investigators, she stated, had been nonetheless “trying to figure out the details of what unfolded during the days when the boat was stranded in the sea”.
A unutilized course
In spite of being one in every of Pakistan’s maximum productive areas, and the house of a number of industries production digital items comparable to fridges, lovers, sports activities and surgical items, Punjab’s districts of Gujrat, Sialkot, Jhelum, and Mandi Bahauddin were hubs for folk looking for emigrate to Europe for many years.
In keeping with Frontex, the Ecu Union’s border and coastguard company, just about 150,000 abnormal migrants from Pakistan have made it to Europe the use of land and sea routes, since 2009, when the company began protecting data of migrants coming into the Ecu Union.
Maximum Pakistanis making the go back and forth generally advance to the United Arab Emirates, next tug flights to Egypt and Libya prior to making an attempt a sea travel around the Mediterranean.
Kasuri, the performing envoy, stated the Western Mediterranean course is rare for Pakistanis looking for abnormal migration. However that number of course could be the aftereffect of makes an attempt via Frontex and Pakistani government to tighten their curbs on abnormal migration, stated Pakistani officers.
General, in keeping with the United International locations Prime Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), just about 200,000 folk crossed into Europe by way of numerous Mediterranean routes in 2024, era a minimum of 2,824 had been declared lifeless or lacking.
However era the ones numbers are nonetheless vital, Frontex reported a 38 p.c fade in abnormal border crossings into the EU in 2024, marking the bottom ranges since 2021.
Frontex information finds that era simply over 10,000 Pakistanis made it to Europe in 2023, the numbers fell via part refer to 12 months, as about 5,000 folk entered Europe via abnormal method the use of land or sea routes.
For the reason that Adriana sinking in June 2023, which brought about nationwide outrage, Pakistani government say they’ve higher and stepped forward their screening to clamp unwell on human smuggling networks, Munir Masood Marath, a senior authentic of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Company stated. However smugglers, in reaction, have searched and located unutilized routes.
“This is a game of cat and mouse, as we keep tracking the smuggling network, they also find different routes to seek and lure people to use those,” Marath informed Al Jazeera in an interview.
Rehan flew from Faisalabad in Punjab to Dubai. Upcoming to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and next directly to Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar, the agent took Rehan and others of their staff via highway to Nouakchott, up north alongside the Atlantic coast.
The agent, Aslam stated, used to be recognized to the people. Rehan didn’t face abuse from the agent or his aides and used to be continuously ready to talk along with his people again house over the telephone.
Till his dying, Rehan’s travel appeared higher than what many undocumented migrants making such journeys must undergo – one thing Aslam knew from his personal enjoy.
Europe’s ‘lifestyle’ trap
Greater than twenty years in the past, in 2003, Aslam, too, had attempted a dangerous travel to Europe – by way of land, to Greece. At the side of a gaggle of fifty to 80 folk from the Gujrat district, he made his method to Pakistan’s southwestern province Balochistan, from the place smugglers helped him, and others go the border and input Iran.
“We kept walking on foot for months on end, and when we would slow down, they [smugglers] would threaten to kill us or sometimes beat us”, he recalled of his travel.
However later just about two months of strolling and hiding, when the crowd ultimately reached the Turkiye border, Aslam gave up and determined to go back house.
“I just told them that I cannot walk any more. I showed them blisters on my feet and begged them to let me go,” he stated. They let him exit. “It’s a miracle I survived that ordeal,” Aslam added.
Since next, the people has constructed its companies, and Aslam, one in every of 5 brothers, stated they had been financially accumulation. The brothers now run a a hit automobile condominium industry with a “fleet of 10-15 vehicles”, he stated, in addition to grocery stores. In addition they personal a petite tract of agricultural land.
“Our family was well settled, and Rehan helped me with our business,” Aslam stated. “But after failing multiple times to secure visas for Canada or the United Kingdom, he decided to take the risk [going to Europe without documents].”
Marath, the FIA authentic, identified that era financial causes play games their section in compelling folk to adopt such perilous trips, there may be a social side. Households, even the ones which can be financially solid, see their neighbours, pals, and kin whose sons have made it to Europe flaunting their upward social mobility.
Aslam defined that the trap of wealth, higher alternatives, and the “chance to live in a more equitable society” driven folk into taking life-threatening dangers.
“There is such a rot in our society, people do not get justice for small things,” he stated. “So often, when our vehicle is plying between cities, traffic police stop people seeking bribes randomly. For many, it is part and parcel of doing business here, but for some, like my brother, they had enough of it.”
Gorsi, too, recalled how his nephews labored in Dubai at a building corporate which he had helped arrange prior to deciding to pursue their Ecu desires.
“Both these boys had been wanting to find a way to reach Europe. They see the lifestyle of some of our fellow villagers who have managed to send their children to Europe, and how it gave them upward social mobility. So, these two also wanted to try their luck,” he added.
Nonetheless, regardless of his personal travel in 2003, and the dying of his nephew in January, Aslam used to be fatalistic – nearly as despite the fact that he used to be making relief with the damaging choices that ended in Rehan’s dying.
“Our brother made this choice,” he stated. “And we knowingly allowed it, despite the risks.”