In one of the busiest hubs for trafficking in Pakistan, would-be migrants are continuing to leave for Europe despite hundreds of people drowning after a trawler sank off the Greek coast last month, the Guardian has found.
In the past week, at least two more people from the district of Mandi Bahauddin, in eastern Pakistan, have left with the help of traffickers. The continued migration comes as families mourn loved ones believed to be on the Greek shipwreck, most of whose passengers were from Pakistan, and those missing after previous forlorn attempts to reach Europe.
Pakistani officials say they can do little to stop the operations of local traffickers. But the families say that they have registered local cases accusing traffickers of lying about the legality of the routes – and that officials are failing to prosecute.
Some locals claim their missing relatives had been led to believe they would be taken to Europe by air using legal visas and not through dunki, the colloquial term in Punjab province for illegal migration.
Many migrants are legally flown to countries such as Nigeria, where traffickers have people and safe houses, before making their way overland to Libya and onwards by boat to Europe.
Zafar Iqbal’s son was 17 when he left Pakistan in 2021. “The agent told me that we would take your son and nephews through a cargo flight from Tunisia to Italy,” he said. “It was all a lie. We don’t know what happened to them.”
Traffickers initially told Iqbal that his son had reached Italy and was in quarantine, but then a few months later told him that all the missing people had been arrested and jailed in Libya.
“We trusted these agents because they were from our village and neighbouring towns. They had sent thousands of people to Europe. Everyone knows them,” said Khurram Shahzad, whose brother, Ibrar Hussain, is missing after making his way to Libya.
Others admitted that despite knowing of migrants suspected to have drowned crossing the Mediterranean, they still allowed their children to leave and so end up on the Greek shipwreck.
“I knew everything – despite it I sent my son,” said Mulazim Hasan with teary eyes, about his 19-year-old boy, Aneez. “Maybe it was my luck to see this tragic incident of my son who drowned, his body never to be found. Or maybe I did not think rationally and there must have been a curtain on my mind.”
Khizr Hayat, whose 30-year-old son Ali Hasnain was also on the Greek ship, said: “I did not foresee this tragedy. His luck failed him and he could not make it. Now we are treated as fools because we allowed him to leave. We would have been treated as wise people had he survived.”
Pakistan’s security services said the tragedies were not dissuading would-be migrants. Sarfraz Virk, a director at the federal investigation agency (FIA), said families also knew of success stories of those who made it abroad and that the agents sold these stories to them.
“We are trying our best to arrest the traffickers and we have made many arrests. But how can you stop those who have proper visas for Nigeria? If we do it, they complain that the FIA stops them for illegal gratifications [bribes].”
Local politician Nadeem Afzal Chan said the exodus and use of traffickers was unlikely to stop until the state invested in education, provided economic stability and gave young people more hope for the future.
He said there were family, social and economic pressures on people to send their children abroad for a better life. He added that the children often persuade their parents to let them go, even through illegal means, as they have seen others settle abroad and prosper.
“I went to offer condolences in a village and was told two more people had left the village despite knowing about the Greek shipwreck. It did not shock me. It is a structural and complicated issue and we have to deal with it accordingly,” said Chan.
