RAWALPINDI: As part of its efforts to check the activities of human-smuggling networks and controlling the illegal movement of Pakistani migrants, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has sent two senior officials to Turkey. Both officials have been given the responsibility to set up an agency office in the country.

According to sources, the decision to send the officials — Dr Muhammad Rizwan and Javed Jiskani — was taken after the recent visit of the Turkish interior minister to Islamabad during which he held a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart and discussed the issue of illegal movement of Pakistani migrants. It was decided that an FIA team would soon visit Turkey to finalise the proposal to set up an office.

Illegal migrants from many countries — including Pakistan — often use Turkey as a transit route to European states.

Pakistan has already been warned by the US officials that it is at risk of losing US civilian aid worth tens of millions of dollars this year if Washington finds that Islamabad has not done enough to combat human trafficking.

Two senior officials of Federal Investigation Agency are in Turkey to finalise arrangements

Sources said that after establishing an office in Turkey the FIA would set up similar facilities in Iran and Greece.

According to the plan, an FIA officer of the rank of deputy director will be posted along with staff members at the offices in Turkey, Iran, and Greece. However, there are reports that the Foreign Office is not being as helpful to the FIA as it could be.

A senior FIA official said that an office of the agency required to check illegal movement of Pakistani migrants had already been working in Doha, Qatar, for some time.

The idea of establishing the FIA’s offices in these three countries was floated when a boat carrying illegal migrants — many of them Pakistanis — capsized off the coast of Libya on Jan 31. Several onboard drowned and many are still missing.

According to sources, bodies of as many as 13 Pakistani migrants were found and sent back home.

The Foreign Office revealed that 33 Pakistanis were on the ship when it sank.

In Qatar, according to a senior official, the Pakistani embassy is helping illegal Pakistani migrants who have been apprehended and put in detention centres. He told Dawn that the embassy was facilitating their return home. The official also said that embassies in Greece and Iran had made similar arrangements for detained Pakistanis.

The official said there were organised networks of human smugglers who use Iran and Turkey as transit points to Europe. Most illegal Pakistani migrants who aspire to reach Europe first enter Iran from Balochistan. They are then taken to Turkey from where they embark on a dangerous journey in flimsy boats over rough seas to reach Greece.

He stressed the need for creating awareness among people, especially the younger generation — who are lured to Europe with the hope of building better lives — about the dangers of illegal migration.

The official expressed the hope that the establishment of FIA offices in Iran, Turkey and Greece would help control illegal movement of migrants and curtail the operations of human traffickers.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2018