GUJRAT: A high-ranking government team will be sent to Morocco today (Saturday) to assess the situation and determine the loss of Pakistani lives in the migrant boat tragedy in the Atlantic Ocean, which occurred in the waters between Mauritania and Morocco at the beginning of the month.
According to reports, 44 of the 65 Pakistani immigrants on board the ship drowned or died after allegations of torture, while 10 bodies were found. At least 19 other people survived, according to media reports.
The survivors and bodies are currently in Dakhla, a small town near the Moroccan coast.
Sources close to the victims said only two of the 28 people from four villages in Gujrat were able to survive, while the rest were among those missing or dead. Survivors, including Uzair Butt, had shared details of their alleged ordeal at the hands of traffickers and police.
They said survivors told suspected traffickers, some of them African nationals, that they would demand more money and that they killed four to five people a day and threw the bodies into the sea.
One of those arrested by the FIA was a woman accused of receiving money from victims in the name of her son.
Other members of the agent’s family had fled the village when the FIA teams conducted raids to arrest the suspects involved in the heinous crime.
Published in Dawn, January 18, 2025
