Pakistan to curb increasing incidents of migrant smuggling to Europe
Celina Ali
Islamabad: Authorities in Pakistan said this week they will begin surveillance of travelers between the ages of 15 and 40 on their way to Europe. This is to try and curb increasing incidents of migrant smuggling.
Two Pakistani officials said they will begin questioning all passengers aged between 15 and 40 towards around 15 countries thought to be on the transit routes of smuggling gangs transporting people towards Europe.
At least two officers from the country’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said it wanted to crack down on the increasing numbers of younger Pakistanis who attempt to reach Europe via air, land and sea routes through Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The FIA reportedly issued an advisory to all its staff at airports to begin profiling passengers headed towards alleged smuggling hotspots. The advisory, reports dpa, was sent out after several incidents of Pakistani citizens drowning in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean.
Pakistani officials have said they believe hundreds of thousands of individuals have attempted to travel with smugglers towards Europe, although no official figures are available.
Similar to many other countries around the world, local smuggling agents in Pakistan are part of global gangs, who often engage local hire members on the ground as the migrants’ journey progresses.
As well as the dangers of drowning at sea, migrants also can face perilous land journeys in overcrowded or unsafe vehicles, often resulting in car accidents. Sometimes the vehicles might break down in the desert regions where there have been reports of migrants dying of thirst and hunger as they try and find their way through inhospitable climates and geography.
There have also been reported deaths at the hands of border guards in countries such as Iran, Turkey, Libya or even Greece.
According to the officials, who spoke to dpa, most Pakistanis will attempt to travel to Europe via countries like Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Libya, Mauritania, Iraq, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan.
Last week, more than 40 Pakistanis were feared to be among those who drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania. The boat had been attempting to reach the Spanish Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean when it capsized.
Pakistani officials from Morocco named at least 21 Pakistani nationals who survived the incident who were being looked after near the town of Dakhla, in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara.
Most of the Pakistanis on the boat, are believed to have come from the same district in the eastern Punjab province. One man in a village called Dhola in Gujrat district of Punjab, Ahsan Shehzad said he believed his son Sufyan Ali had died on the boat when it capsized.
Shehzad said that he had received a voice message from his son saying that the boat was already overcrowded before a further 25 people forcibly boarded it.
In another village, Jurah, mourners gathered last week. One man, Muhammad Akram said he had lost his son Abu Bakar in the same incident. He claimed he had paid millions of rupees to a migrant smuggler.
Akram said his son had flown to Morocco and that he hadn’t realized the last part of the journey was by sea. Another family in another village in the same province said they had sold property in order to raise the money to send their son abroad.
The families all hoped their sons would get good jobs abroad and be able to send money back home. Organizations that work with migrants believe that efforts to shut down the once-frequently used smuggling routes between North Africa and Europe’s Mediterranean coasts have encouraged smugglers to turn to the more dangerous Atlantic route.
Although the numbers are still in the hundreds of arrivals rather than thousands, some believe that smugglers may be trying to sell the Atlantic route towards the Canary Islands to more would-be migrants from South Asia.
The costs can be much higher since much of the journey can be done by plane. Some who have used the route have told Spanish officials they paid around 16,000 euros to enter Spain via the Canary Islands.
The route is also potentially faster because of that and is seen by some in South Asia as less risk because they focus on the plane transfers, without thinking about the final leg of the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, with its strong currents and often dangerous weather patterns.
The Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) estimates that last year around 9,700 people could have died or gone missing on the Atlantic route. They branded it “the most dangerous in the world.”
Hundreds of Pakistanis are believed to have been among the victims of the overcrowded former fishing vessel that sank off the Greek mainland in June 2023. The exact number is difficult to quantify, but officials estimated around 350 Pakistanis died in one of the deadliest incidents in the Mediterranean Sea.
After that incident, the Pakistani authorities also announced they would launch a crackdown on human traffickers and migrant smugglers.
