Over 12,000 Pakistanis in jails abroad, NA told

The foreign affairs ministry on Thursday told the National Assembly that more than 12,000 Pakistani citizens are languishing in prisons abroad.

The ministry presented the details of the Pakistanis imprisoned in foreign jails in the lower house of parliament.

The major chunk of them are in Arab countries.

As per the statistics presented in the House by the foreign affairs ministry, around 6,200 Pakistani citizens are incarcerated in the prisons of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

As per the documents, 1,612 Pakistani citizens were languishing in the jails of Abu Dhabi, 1,596 in Riyadh, 1,504 in Jeddah, and 1,488 in Dubai.

The papers further disclosed that 811 Pakistanis were imprisoned in Greece, 672 in Iraq, 329 in Turkey, 239 in China, 275 in Britain, 209 in Qatar, 208 in Manama, 151 in Malaysia, 119 in Germany, 115 in Spain, 98 in the United States, 94 in Sri Lanka, 55 in Kuwait, 44 in Australia, 32 in Denmark, 21 in Maldives, 13 in Afghanistan, 12 in Jordan, and eight in Nigeria.

It is not a surprise that so many Pakistanis have ended up in Saudi jails. There are several Pakistani migrant workers living in Saudi Arabia.

A large percentage of Pakistanis imprisoned in Saudi jails are convicted or accused of drug smuggling.

These are the hardest to set free given most have been caught with drugs on their person.

Given the rising prices in the country, many young Pakistanis search for greener pastures in European countries – even at the cost of their lives.

At least 350 Pakistanis were on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last month.

The fishing boat with a capacity of 400 people had over 700 people on board when it sank on June 14, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told parliament, adding that a total of 281 Pakistani families had contacted the government to seek help.

Another 193 Pakistani families have taken DNA tests to try to identify those who died in one of Europe’s deadliest shipping disasters in recent years, he said.

Pakistan said it had arrested several human traffickers and their agents who told authorities that their ring leader was based in Libya.

These human smugglers had charged around $8,000 a person to take them to Europe illegally through the sea route after flying legally to Dubai, Egypt and Libya, authorities said.