Family mourns boat tragedy

Victim had told brother he would call when he reached his destination

GUJRAT:

As the government tightens the noose around human traffickers in the wake of the boat tragedy, reports say more than 300 Pakistanis are feared to have died.

Reports also said that besides those who have miraculously survived, hopes of finding any more people alive are fading.

Nevertheless, the families of those missing are still waiting for a miracle to happen.

One such family is that of 30-year-old Ali Raza, a police constable, who was also on board the ill-fated boat that met with the accident off Greece last week.

Ali Raza, a resident of Mohalla Aminabad in Gujrat, was the sole supporter of the family.

He had left for Dubai with his friends on May 1, and boarded the boat from Libya to Greece on June 7.

Ali Raza’s younger brother, Saawan, told The Express Tribune that during the last contact the family had had with his brother, he did not tell them about his plan to go to Greece on a boat.

Instead, he had told them that he was going to New Zealand by air, but when he arrived in Libya with his friend Usman Siddique, a police officer, they came to know that they were going to Europe illegally.

“My family and I beseeched my brother to not to use any illegal means to go to Europe and come back home,” Saawan said.

His last words were that he would call them when he reached his destination.

There was no contact with him after that conversation.

Saawan said that his brother had kept his plans from his family. He made the plan with his friends.

The Express Tribune had learnt that the factors that had prompted Ali Raza to risk his life had been his low salary and the hard times his family had been going through financially.

The things that occupied his mind were to get the best medical treatment for his sick mother, marry off his sisters and bear Saawan’s education expenses.

Zammurd, a maternal uncle of Ali’s, said his nephew hardly made Rs30,000 to Rs35,000 a month.

A cousin of Ali Raza’s regretted that no one from the police department, which he had served for eight years, bothered to visit his family, especially his old mother, to console them.

The boat that capsized off the coast of Greece last week was carrying around 800 people, according to an initial investigation by police, as the nation observed a national day of mourning on Monday.

The National Flag flew at half-mast at all official buildings on Monday.

A police report had said one of those arrested had admitted to sending three men to take the boat journey, charging each of them up to Rs3 million.

The assessment that 800 people had been on board had come from initial investigations, police officer Riaz Mughal said.

“We learnt from two survivors, the arrested suspects and the bereaved families that the boat was carrying around 750 to 800 people,” Mughal had said.

Witness accounts had placed the number on board at between 400 and 750 people and Greek authorities have said 104 survivors and 78 bodies have been brought ashore.

One of the suspects arrested said his own son had been on the boat, the report had said. It had also said the main suspect behind a smuggling network spanning Libya, Pakistan and Greece was based in Libya.

Mughal said at least 21 of those who died last week came from the Kotli district in AJK.

Senior Regional Police Officer Tahir Mahmood, based in Muzaffarabad, had said police were hunting further suspects in addition to those arrested. He did not specify how many.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2023.