The game of death is played out across two continents, at the expense of precious human lives
ACCORDING to recent media reports, illegal Pakistani emigrants have been meeting tragic incidents in their never ending effort to migrate to Europe. With dreams of a prosperous future in their eyes, Pakistani youth, instead of reaching any European country, have been dying in miserable circumstances.
During visits of different public places in Istanbul, I managed to have a word with a few Pakistanis. A handful of them, stranded at the Pakistani Consulate in Istanbul, narrated their woeful tales. A great human tragedy is indeed taking place at the borders and coasts of Turkey. And unfortunately, a large number of innocent and straightforward Pakistani youth are victims of this ordeal.
Like people of other countries of the Third World, young unemployed Pakistanis, belonging to the lower and lower middle-classes, dream of a prosperous future and decide to take the risk. But greedy, cunning and ruthless human smugglers exploit their dreams for their illegal business that gives birth to a human tragedy. They cheat people with promises of sending them to Europe quickly and safely and strike deals with them to extort huge fees. People pay them a lot of money, a number of them after selling properties, jewellery and livestock, or mortgaging their valuables.
These smugglers gather people in Quetta, and then some of them are sent to Iran after obtaining legal or illegal visas, while some are smuggled to that bordering country without any legal documents. Baloch tribes, that are settled on both sides of the Pak-Iran border, are used for this purpose. In Iran, these people are assembled in the city of Tabrez before shifting them to the regions close to the Iran-Turkey border. Then, they are asked to cross the border on foot in the darkness of the night under the guidance of Iranian agents. They are made to walk on foot, hungry and thirsty in the mountainous border region for the whole night. Some unfortunate people fall prey to landmines laid by the Turkish border security forces, while some others die after receiving bullets from the Turkish border guards. However, some of them succeed in crossing the border and enter Turkey.
As soon as these people reach Turkey, they are stuffed into closed trucks like animals to shift them to Istanbul after a tormenting journey of 24-hours. Istanbul is a hub of human smugglers, who call their dens ‘safe houses’. They are in fact private jails and torture cells where people are detained for an indefinite period. These people are stuffed in small dark rooms in such a manner that they find no sufficient space to take rest or sleep. Coming out of these torture cells is strictly banned. Some agents even subject them to physical torture.
Huge sums of money are extorted from their families through blackmailing and torture and the worst aspect of this detention is that it is for an unlimited period. As huge sums of money are required to get freedom from these detention centres, some youths get their limbs broken in a bid to escape.
Human smugglers adopt two methods to smuggle these people to Greece. One to smuggle them via sea. People are shifted to Izmer after being stuffed them in closed vehicles in the darkness of night to be dumped on the Greek coast through motorboats. Then they are shifted to the dens of agents in Athens and are detained, till receiving the fees and before striking deals to smuggle them to any other European country. At times terrible accidents take place during this process; boats sink due to overloading, bad weather conditions or any fault in the boats resulting in hundreds of people losing their life in journey to a bright future.
Land is the other option. After shifting victims through closed vehicles to the Turkish-Greek border from Istanbul, they are taken to the banks of a canal in the border region after two to three hours of journey on foot. Then they are smuggled into Greece through rubber boats before shifting them to a specific place within Greece after several more hours of travel on foot. After that, the Greek agents shift them to the dens of human smugglers in Athens through taxis or other closed vehicles.
Despite going through this ordeal to fulfil the desire of reaching Europe, some ill-fated people are caught at any place during their journey, and those who are caught by the Greek border guards are pushed back to Turkey. Such people are deprived of money and other valuables under the pretext of body search. They are detained in bad conditions with little food. Agents get some people freed after bribing the Turkish police, while the rest are handed over to the emigration authorities for deportation. After detaining them for a few weeks, they are dumped in a hilly region on the border between Iran and Turkey, and are directed to enter Iran on foot without water and food to face another episode of tribulation.
The Iranian border guards catch some of them and subject them to physical torture, while tribal people on the Iranian border detain some others, and they remain in their custody until their families send a handsome amount of money for their release.
When I visited the Pakistani consulate in Istanbul, Vice Consular Najeeb Durram and Visa Officer Mahmood discussed the ordeal of illegal Pakistani emigrants in detail. According to them, this trend has deep roots within Pakistan. The governmental and non-governmental organizations should inform public through media about the bitter facts so that they do not fall prey to cheating by the greedy agents.
Arrested people often do not cooperate with the officials of consulate. People insist on issuance of Pakistani passport without any evidence, which is extremely inappropriate demand and is harmful for the national interests because often Indians, Bengalis, Sikhs, Afghans, Iranians and Iraqis try to deceive the consulate officials. Also the Iranian embassy does not issue transit visa to Pakistanis on Pakistani passports issued by the consulate.
Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Sialkot, Narowal, Gujranwala and Jhelum districts of the Punjab province are the areas worst affected by the human smuggling. Particularly fifteen and sixteen-year old boys of Gujrat district. They reach Istanbul without a visa, passport and the national identity card. Quetta is the hub of Pakistani human smugglers. Business of passports and visa tampering is on its peak in Quetta. The human smugglers also use illegal immigrants as drug peddlers involving them in their drug smuggling.
According to Turkish authorities, certain difficulties are experienced in the safe return of victims to their countries of origin. It takes between 10 days to two months to obtain necessary travel documents. Difficulties are also encountered in covering travel expenses due to lack of special funds.
International assistance, special return and reintegration funds are also necessary. Turkey is prepared to co-operate with international organizations and donor countries to develop projects to address these needs.
The Europe-bound Pakistanis who fall prey to the human smugglers manoeuvrings are innocent humans. They should not be treated as terrorists or hardened criminals, rather they should be treated on humanitarian grounds. The arrested illegal immigrants should be provided proper food, health and residential facilities besides other human rights. These people should be allowed to stay in Turkey for a specific period, with orders to leave the country within this period.
Instead of being dumped in the hilly border region, the deportees should be formally handed over to the Iranian authorities so that they are deported safely. Record of all such deportations should be maintained and the media along with the Pakistan embassy should be informed accordingly. Human smugglers, including Pakistani, Iranian and Turkish agents, should be dealt with sternly because several precious lives are being lost due to their greed.
I appeal to the Iranian Government that the Pakistani emigrants, who are stranded in Turkey, should be issued transit visas on their out passports so that they could return to their motherland safely. Majority of the people are compelled to continue their journey to the vale of death due to non-cooperative attitude of the Iranian authorities. The attitude of the Iranian border guards towards such immigrants should be based on humanitarian grounds and Islamic values.
The attitude of Greek border guards and police is generally said to be better but there is no proper arrangement to deport illegal emigrants and such people are often pushed back into Turkey, while some of them are deported after keeping them in detention for a few months. Identification and repatriation of dead bodies found on Greek coasts is also an important issue, as there is no proper arrangement for communication of information about the arrested, dead or drowned people. Checking of the dens of human smugglers in Greece is also necessary because several people are detained there.
According to my analysis, people leave Pakistan after they see a future bleak in the homeland, as there is a lack of appropriate job opportunities in the country. Among them are people who not only bring prosperity to their homes but also their homelands and it is their hard-earned money on the basis of which the State Bank of Pakistan and the government make tall claims. Due to them, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves have not only sustained several difficult situations but are on the rise. The fault of stranded Pakistani emigrants is not of such an extent that they are not extended any support.
The Pakistan government should contact the governments of brother Islamic countries with moral courage on the issue of illegal emigrants so that appropriate measures are taken to mitigate their sufferings.
The Pakistani media should keep the public abreast with the sufferings of illegal immigrants and expose the fraudulent methods of human smugglers, as people need to be informed that no doubt Istanbul is a gateway to Europe. But now it has been closed on illegal emigrants.
The media should check this human tragedy by bringing about a change in the thinking of people. Moreover, human rights and social welfare organizations and activists must know that taking care of human beings without any delay is better than making hue and cry over dead bodies.
Human trafficking exposes illegal migrants to exploitation and violation of their fundamental human rights. A great human tragedy is taking place on the borders and coasts of Turkey/Europe.
Human smuggling is increasing day by day but nothing is being done to counter human trafficking activities except making tall claims in useless air-condition drawing-rooms in posh areas of Islamabad. No remedial action is being done, other than trading of our miseries, which is a new form of exploitation. Boys and girls of the English speaking elite class are provided jobs by NGOs and it is assumed that problem has been solved. It is only a waste of money and deception to the world. This whole system and bureaucratic style is only to discourage the genuine people and encourage the human trafficking.
The attitude of European embassies towards this issue too is discouraging. Their best effort seems to be discouraging legal travelling of Pakistani gentlemen only to encourage illegal travelling. There are cruel syndicates in European embassies and in markets who are selling visas at very high cost. That is why people are forced to deal with human smugglers at less cost but risk of life. People find no way but to adopt the journey of suicide.
The game of death is played out across two continents, at the expense of precious human lives 
