Ali Hussain’s mother can barely speak a sentence without breaking down. Her voice is hoarse from crying. Holding back tears, she says that she recites the Quran all day, praying for her son’s miraculous return.
Hussain is among the hundreds of Pakistanis missing since an overloaded fishing boat carrying up to 750 migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on June 14.
The accident near Greece could be one of the deadliest in recent history. Reports suggest the boat was carrying about 200 to 300 Pakistanis, the most from any single country. Pakistan observed a day of mourning this week.
Hussain, 18, and his cousin Ali Jahanzaib, 21, who is also missing, paid a trafficking agent $3,000 each to fly to Libya from Pakistan. They committed to pay another $5,000 upon reaching Italy by boat.
Sitting in a room full of relatives and friends comforting the family, Hussain’s father, Hafeez-ul-Rehman, told VOA he learned about the accident through social media.
He had come back from midday prayers, Rehman said, when he opened Facebook and saw that the incident was trending as top news. He called the trafficking agent in Libya to find out if his son and nephew had been on that boat.
“He [the agent] was asleep. We asked him what was going on? He said he didn’t know and would check. It was around midnight or so when he confirmed that it was indeed that ship,” Rehman said.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, recorded about 54,000 attempts to illegally enter the continent in the first quarter of this year.
In the same period, more than 440 died taking the perilous journey, according to the International Organization for Migration, making it the deadliest quarter since 2017.
More than half of the illegal attempts, three times more than last year, were made via the central Mediterranean route, according to Frontex.
After Ivory Coast and Guinea, Pakistan accounts for the greatest number of migrants on this route. Many come from the central areas of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
Muhammad Ajmal, an acting deputy director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, or FIA, told VOA that human trafficking thrives in these areas because of a mindset that says, “We will send at least one of our children to Europe, at any cost.”
While growing economic desperation drives many, Ajmal said others leave because of the “demonstration effect.”
“People see that a neighbor’s son went overseas and now the family has a nice house, a car, and that pushes them to send their child,” he said.
Watching friends make it to Europe successfully also inspires many to take the perilous journey.
Hussain and Jahanzaib, the missing cousins, belong to a family of gold jewelers. Rehman, Hussain's father, told VOA he had once gotten the trafficking agent to cancel the tickets, but the young men were adamant, so he caved in.
In response to this tragedy and another earlier this year in which nearly 30 Pakistanis perished in the Mediterranean, authorities have cracked down on human trafficking.
The FIA has arrested at least 17 suspects and registered 54 cases. The agency has collected 167 DNA samples from families to assist in identifying the remains in Greece.
Ajmal rejected the notion the agency had been turning a blind eye to human smuggling or that its agents were involved in the crime, saying that “without the deterrence it [trafficking] would be much more prevalent.”
He said agents were having trouble getting cooperation from families.
“We have sent our teams to every victim’s house. Some have simply refused to meet with us. Others say, 'We don’t know anything,' that 'Our son managed this on his own,' and ‘We don’t know anything about the agent,’ and ‘We don’t want to disclose.’ Some say, ‘We don’t want to pursue any legal action.’ So, we are running into a lot of problems,” Ajmal told VOA.
Families are desperate for information. Mariam Bibi, a mother of two brothers on the boat, told VOA she just wants closure.
“We have hope, but we don’t have any information,” Mariam said, expressing her frustration. “Someone says they [her sons] are fine, someone else says they are not.”
Rehman said he was prepared for any eventuality, but that his wife was not ready to accept her son might be dead.
Asked if he would recommend that anyone let children attempt the perilous journey, Rehman said no, but he contended the latest tragedy would not deter many.
“Nobody stops. Even those that are already there [in Libya] know the ship has sunk, still they are going” Rehman noted.
The survivors’ tally stands at 104, and a dozen are Pakistani.
