Islamabad, Pakistan – Rehan Aslam’s family headed a car transport and rental company and grocery stores. Rehan helped manage these companies.
But five months ago, the 34 -year -old man sold his car, a Toyota Hiace Wagon, for 4.5 million rupees ($ 16,000) to pay an agent who would help him leave his life in his village , Jora, in the District of Gujrat, Pakistan of Pakistan Province of Punjab, looking for a future in Europe.
He has never done it.
Rehan, a father of two daughters and a boy, was one of 86 people who climbed a traveler’s boat on January 2 near Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in West Africa, targeting the Canary Islands , an archipelago off the coast of northwest of Africa controlled by control by control by control by control by control by control by the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of the -Stre of Africa Spain.
Basted at sea for more than 13 days, the ship was finally rescued by the Moroccan authorities – with only 36 survivors on board. Rabia Kasuri, the acting ambassador of Pakistan to Morocco, confirmed that at least 65 Pakistani were on board the boat:.
Rehan was one of those who died.
“He just wanted to go to Europe in one way or another. It was his dream, and he told us not to create obstacles in his own way, “Mian Ikram Aslam, Rehan’s older brother, told Al Jazeera. “All he wanted was to look for better opportunities outside Pakistan for his three children.”
The Ministry of Pakistan Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday that it would repatriate the 22 survivors of the recent boat accident off Morocco, but there is little closure on the horizon for the families of those who died.
Instead, the tragedy has left a series of questions in its wake. How are boat people who died? Why were they traveling to Europe from West Africa – an improbable and new path for irregular Pakistani migrants?
And why people like Rehan, families with a certain financial stability, risked their lives to go to Europe in the first place?
“Tortured to death”
This incident on the road to the Western Mediterranean comes just a few weeks after four other ships sank in the central Mediterranean December of the year. In these tragedies, 200 people were rescued, but nearly 50 were reported dead or missing, including at least 40 Pakistanis.
One of the deadliest wrecks in the Mediterranean occurred in June 2023When more than 700 people, including nearly 300 Pakistani, died after Adriana, an aging fishing trawler, capsized near the Greek island of Pylos.
In the last incident, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially announced on January 16 that the boat had “capsized” near Dakhla, a port city of the disputed territory of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco. But the families of the victims claim that their loved ones were “beaten” and “tortured” before being thrown over board.
Press release
Capsized boat incident off Morocco pic.twitter.com/0znvrjwf4m
– Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@Foreignoffice) January 16, 2025
Aslam, 49, said that the survivors of his village reported that hackers on another boat had attacked them, stole their personal effects and passengers attacked with hammers before throwing them into the sea.
“We were able to speak with some of the surviving boys of Dakhla, who shared how Pirates attacked their boat several times for a week, torturing and throwing people over board,” he said.
A similar account was shared by Chaudhry Ahsan Gorsi, a businessman from the village of Dhola near the city of Gujrat in the province of Punjab.
Gorsi has lost its nephews, Atif Shehzad and Sufyan Ali, who paid 3.5 million rupees ($ 12,500) to agents to facilitate their trip. The survivors informed him of the brutal circumstances of their death.
“These boys sold their land to raise funds and left last August,” Gorsi told Al Jazeera. “But I could never have imagined that they would meet such a horrible spell-physically attacked, tortured and thrown into the water,” he said.
After the boat rescue last week, the Pakistani government sent a survey team to Rabat to investigate allegations. However, their report has not yet been made public.
“We are still carrying out our investigation and interviewed the survivors of their experiences,” Rabat Ambassador in Pakistan, Rabia Kasuri told Al Jazua. The investigators, she said, “always tried to understand the details of what happened during the days when the boat was blocked in the sea”.
A new route
Although they are one of the most fertile regions of Pakistan and the house of several manufacturing industries of electronic products such as refrigerators, fans, sports and surgical products, Punjat Punjrat districts, SIALKOT, JHELUM And Mandi Bahauddin were hubs for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for People for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people for people trying to migrate in Europe for decades.
According to Frontex, the European Union border and coast guard agency, nearly 150,000 irregular migrants from Pakistan went to Europe using land and sea, since 2009, when the agency began to Hold on the registers of migrants entering the European Union.
Most of the Pakistanis making the trip generally go to the United Arab Emirates, then take flights to Egypt and Libya before trying a sea trip through the Mediterranean.
Kasuri, the acting envoy, said that the road to the Western Mediterranean was rare for the Pakistanis in search of an irregular migration. But this choice of road could be the consequence of the attempts of the authorities of Frontex and Pakistani to tighten their borders on irregular migration, said Pakistani officials.
Overall, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 200,000 people crossed Europe via various Mediterranean roads in 2024, while at least 2,824 were declared dead or missing.
But although these figures are still significant, Frontex reported a 38% drop in irregular border crossings in the EU in 2024, marking the lowest levels since 2021.
Frontex data reveal that, while just over 10,000 Pakistanis went to Europe in 2023, the number fell in half the following year, while around 5,000 people entered Europe by means irregular by using land or sea roads.
Since the sinking of Adriana in June 2023, which caused national indignation, the Pakistani authorities say they have increased and improved their screening to suppress human smuggling networks, announced Masood Marath, a senior official of the agency Federal Pakistani. But the smugglers, in response, searched and found new routes.
“This is a cat and mouse game, while we continue to follow the contraband network, they also find different routes to search and attract people to use them,” Marath told Al Jazeera in a interview.
Rehan flew from Faisalabad to Punjab in Dubai. Then, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, then in Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar, the agent took Rehan and other members of their group by the Nouakchott road, in the North along the Atlantic coast.
The agent said Aslam, was known to the family. Rehan was not abused by the agent or his collaborators and was often able to speak with his family at home on the phone.
Until his death, Rehan’s journey seemed better than many undocumented migrants making such trips must endure – something that Aslam knew about his own experience.
Europe “lifetime”
More than two decades ago, in 2003, Aslam also tried a risky trip to Europe – via land, in Greece. With a group of 50 to 80 people from the Gujrat district, he went to southwest Pakistan, Balutchistan, from where the smugglers have helped him, and others cross the border and enter Iran .
“We continued to walk for months, and when we slow down, they [smugglers] threatened to kill us or sometimes to fight, ”he recalls his trip.
But after almost two months of walking and hiding places, when the group finally reached the border of Turkiye, Aslam abandoned and decided to return home.
“I just told them I can’t walk. I showed them blisters on my feet and begged them to let me go, “he said. They let him go. “It is a miracle that I survived this test,” added Aslam.
Since then, the family has built their businesses, and Aslam, one of the five brothers, said they were financially safe. The brothers now manage a successful car rental company with a “fleet of 10 to 15 vehicles,” he said, as well as grocery stores. They also have a small extent of agricultural land.
“Our family was well installed and Rehan helped me with our business,” said Aslam. “But after failing several times to obtain visas for Canada or the United Kingdom, he decided to take the risk [going to Europe without documents]. “”
Marath, the FIA official, stressed that if economic reasons play their role in people forcing to undertake such perilous journeys, there is also a social aspect. Families, even those who are financially stable, see their neighbors, friends and parents whose sons arrived in Europe displaying their upward social mobility.
Aslam explained that the attraction of wealth, better opportunities and the “chance of living in a more equitable society” have pushed people to take potentially fatal risks.
“There is such a rot in our society, people do not have justice for little things,” he said. “So often, when our vehicle rushes between cities, traffic police prevents people from looking for bribes at random. For many, it is an integral part of doing business here, but for some, like my brother, they had enough. »»
Gorsi also recalled how his nephews worked in Dubai in a construction company he had helped to create before deciding to continue their European dreams.
“These two boys wanted to find a way to reach Europe. They see the lifestyle of some of our village colleagues who managed to send their children to Europe and how it gave them upward social mobility. So these two also wanted to try their luck, “he added.
However, despite his own trip in 2003, and the death of his nephew in January, Aslam was fatalistic – almost as if he made peace with the dangerous decisions that led to the death of Rehan.
“Our brother made this choice,” he said. “And we knowingly allowed it, despite the risks.”
