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Betsy Joles

They set sail with dreams and met disaster: Stories from the ill-fated migrant ship

Munir Betsy Joles Pakistan Ibrahim Khan NPR Europe Punjab Libya WhatsApp
Muhammad Aslam, whose sons Qasim and Munir are still missing from the shipwreck, sits by his house in Noor Jamal village, Punjab province, Pakistan on June 22. (Betsy Joles for NPR)

PUNJAB, Pakistan — When Muhammad Aslam sold his house in Gujranwala, Pakistan, to finance smuggler fees for his two grown sons, he imagined it would pay off when they landed safely on the shores of Europe.

Aslam's sons, Qasim, 36, and Munir, 24, along with two other male relatives, informed their family the trip for the group of four would cost around 10 million rupees, nearly $35,000. They would depart in early May from Noor Jamal – the village where they had moved after selling their house in Gujranwala. They'd drive to Lahore, Punjab's largest city — flying from there to Dubai and then on to Libya, where they'd get on a boat headed to Italy.

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