FO confirms identities of 13 Pakistanis who died in Moroccan boat tragedy

The Foreign Office (FO) said on Tuesday confirmed the identities of 13 Pakistanis who died in last month’s Mauritania-Morocco boat tragedy.

The FO said on January 16 that the boat, carrying 80 passengers, capsized near Morocco, with over 40 Pakistanis reportedly among the dead. Migrant rights group Walking Borders said as many as 50 migrants may have drowned in the latest deadly wreck involving people trying to make the crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Over 40 Pakistanis were reportedly murdered by African human traffickers on the boat with only 22 out of around 66 Pakistanis onboard surviving the tragedy. The repatriation of the survivors was completed with the arrival of the last batch of eight survivors at Islamabad airport on Saturday.

In a statement issued today, the FO said: “After a process of extensive verification, bodies of 13 Pakistani nationals have been identified. Mortal remains of four Pakistani nationals are scheduled to arrive in Islamabad on February 5” via a Saudi Airlines flight.

It said the four were Hamid Shabbir, Muhammad Arslan Khan, Qaisar Iqbal and Sajjad Ali.

According to the initial investigation, the Pakistani nationals paid between Rs1.6-Rs2.5 million per person to human agents for air trips to Spain.

However, the agents illegally sent them to Ethiopia and later to Senegal on visit visas.

From Senegal, the agents sent them to Spain by sea and during the voyage, extracted more money from the immigrants.

The investigation revealed that most of the travel agents belonged to Wazirabad, Lahore, Gujarat and Sialkot.