GUJRAT: Bodies of four more Pakistanis who died in Mauritania-Morocco boat tragedy are expected to reach the Islamabad airport on Friday (today).

Official sources said the remains of Sufyan Ali and Qussain Haider of Gujrat, Muhammd Waqas of Gujranwala and Muhammad Akram of Mandi Bahauddin,who were reported killed by African human traffickers, were scheduled to arrive in Pakistan through a Saudi airlines flight in the small hours of Friday.

Earlier, the bodies of Qaisar Iqbal of Gujrat, Hamid Shabeer and Sajjad Ali of Mandi Bahauddin district and Muhammad Arslan of Sheikhupura district reached Pakistan between Wednesday and Thursday.

The funeral prayers of Qaiser Iqbal were offered in Hajiwala village of Gujrat whereas the funeral prayers in absentia of another victim from the same area, Sheikh Zaheerudin Babar, were offered in Karianwala village of Gujrat on Thursday.

Funeral prayers held for Morocco boat tragedy victims

Mr Baber was the younger brother of Professor Sheikh Abdul Rasheed, the director media and publications, University of Gujrat. After leaving his own business of garments in the area, Babar left for Italy several years ago before returning to Pakistan.

However, this time his destination was Spain where his another brother is settled but he was killed in the boat tragedy. His body could not be found since the African agents had thrown many victims into the Atlantic Ocean.

The funeral prayers of three other victims were also offered in Mandi Bahauddin and Sheikhupura districts where they were laid to rest in native graveyards.

According to AFP, the village of Mirza Virkan in Sheikhupura buried M. Arslan Khan – one of four bodies from the shipwreck repatriated a day earlier.

“We sent Arslan to build a better future, and the trafficker assured us that he would send him legally,” his 34-year-old brother Adnan Khan told AFP.

“We sold our property and animals for Arslan’s future, but the trafficker betrayed us — he sent back our brother’s dead body.”

Pakistan has one of the highest rates of emigration in the world, according to the United Nation’s International Organis­ation for Migration. Many migr­ants depart from Punjab and the northeastern region of Pakistan administered Kashmir because their communities have historic ties to the country’s diaspora in Europe.

An official from the Federal Investigation Age­ncy, speaking anonymously to AFP in 2023, estimated Pakistanis attempt 40,000 illegal trips every year. In June that year the Mediterranean witnessed one of its worst migrant shipwrecks when a rusty and overloaded trawler sank overnight.

It was carrying more than 750 people — up to 350 of them Pakistanis — but only 82 bodies were ever recovered.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2025