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GUJRAT: A high-ranking government team will be dispatched to Morocco today (Saturday) to assess the situation and ascertain the loss of Pakistani lives in the Atlantic Ocean migrant boat tragedy, which occurred in the waters between Mauritania and Morocco earlier this month.
As per reports, 44 out of a total of 65 Pakistani immigrants on board the ship either drowned or died after alleged torture, while 10 bodies have been recovered. At least 19 others survived, according to media reports.
The survivors and the bodies are currently in Dakhla, a small town near the coast of Morocco.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has decided to send an official team to Morocco, sources told Dawn, adding that the team comprised Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director General (north) Muneer Maarth, Additional Secretary Interior Salman Chaudhary and representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Bureau.
They said the officials would visit the Moroccan capital of Rabat and Dakhla, where they would assess the situation and compile a detailed report, which would be submitted to the prime minister.
Meanwhile, FIA has registered three cases against suspects involved in sending the intending immigrants abroad illegally. The cases have been lodged against the human traffickers of Gujrat and Sialkot districts with FIA crime circles in Gujranwala and Gujrat.
The victims also belong to Sialkot and Mandi Bahauddin districts of the region.
According to one of the FIRs lodged on Friday, complainant Shabnam Arfan of Budha Goraya village of Daska tehsil of Sialkot alleged her husband Arfan and her brother Muhammad Arslan had been booked by a local agent, Asghar Sindhi, and his accomplice Rana Usama for Europe travel for employment for Rs4m each.
She said the agent had promised them to send them to Spain by air after which they had left for Ethiopia from Faisalabad airport via Dubai on Sept 24. From Ethiopia, she said, they were taken to Senegal and Mauritania where the agents dispatched them on a ship.
The agents told her via WhatsApp call on Jan 6 that her husband and brother had reached Spain upon which she asked for a confirmation call from both family members, but the agents neither arranged the call nor remained in contact with her afterwards, she said.
Sources in the victims’ families said that only two of the 28 people from four villages of Gujrat were able to survive, while the rest were among those thought to be missing or dead. Survivors, including one Uzair Butt, had shared the details of their alleged ordeal at the hands of traffickers and police officials.
They said that the survivors told the alleged traffickers, including some African nationals, would ask for more money and they used to kill four to five people daily and throw the bodies into the sea.
One of those arrested by the FIA was a woman accused of receiving cash from the victims on the behalf of her son.
Other family members of the agent had fled the village when FIA teams conducted raids to arrest the suspects involved in the heinous crime.
Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2025
