Most missing Pakistanis in Italy boat capsize had travelled as Umrah pilgrims, officials say

GUJRAT: Most Pakistani nationals reported missing after a recent boat capsize off Italy had left the country posing as Umrah pilgrims, while some others had travelled on visit visas for Azerbaijan, Egypt and Uganda, according to well-placed sources.

The sources said the missing migrants had departed Pakistan around four to five months ago. They reached Libya through different routes and then waited there for an opportunity to board a vessel bound for Italy.

Officials said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been tasked with gathering details of the missing Pakistanis and tracing the agents allegedly involved in sending them abroad from different parts of the Gujranwala and Gujrat regions.

An official source said families of the missing Pakistanis were not willing to provide information about the agents who had allegedly arranged their travel to Libya for onward smuggling to Italy. According to the same official, initial information suggested that at least six main agents were involved, including two each from Mandi Bahauddin and Sialkot, and one each from Gujranwala and Gujrat.

The official added that the Mandi Bahauddin-based agents were also believed to have facilitated the travel of some missing persons from Hafizabad district. He said an agent from Sambrial tehsil in Sialkot was also suspected of sending missing Pakistanis from Sialkot and Wazirabad districts to Libya.

Missing persons traced to several districts

According to local sources, at least seven of the missing Pakistanis belong to Phalia and Malakwal tehsils of Mandi Bahauddin. Four each are from Hafizabad and Sialkot, three are from Gujranwala, and one each is from Gujrat and Wazirabad districts.

Sources said Ameer Hamza, a resident of Sook Kalan village in Gujrat district, was also among the missing.

Official sources said the missing Pakistanis had flown out of the country from Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot airports. They added that FIA field staff was continuing to collect information about the missing persons and the suspected agents, which could assist law enforcement agencies in acting against human trafficking networks operating in the region.

Officials said the FIA Gujranwala Zone had not yet registered any case against the suspected traffickers because the heirs of the missing Pakistanis had not cooperated. However, they noted that after earlier boat capsize incidents, several cases had been registered on complaints filed by FIA officials after victims’ families declined to become complainants against human traffickers.

Meanwhile, sources close to the families said the heirs had received no information about the fate of their relatives.

Boat capsized after leaving Libya

The boat, carrying more than 100 irregular migrants, capsized off the Italian coast on Sunday, and at least 20 Pakistani nationals from the Gujranwala and Gujrat regions were among those lost at sea.

According to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, more than 80 migrants went missing after a boat carrying 120 people capsized in the Central Mediterranean after departing from Tajoura, Libya whereas 32 of these people were rescued and two bodies retrieved so far.