ISTANBUL
Malik Shiraz is frantically searching for his brothers in Kalamata, a small town on the southern coast of Greece that has been in a frenzy since last week’s deadly migrant shipwreck.
“It was such a small boat. Why did the agents put so many people on it? she begged herself, the desperation palpable in her voice.
By “agents” he meant human traffickers who organize dangerous journeys, mostly with false documents and through illegal channels, for people seeking a better life abroad, with Europe being a particularly preferred destination.
Shiraz’s brothers, Qaiser and Tahir, were among 700 people on a ship headed from Libya to Italy when it sank in the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece on June 14.
All but 104 survivors died in the disaster, the deadliest incident in years.
Hundreds of them were from Pakistan, but the final number has yet to be established. In its latest update on Friday, the Pakistani government said about 350 of its citizens were on the ship and the bodies of 82 had been recovered.
Shiraz is very familiar with how people smugglers operate in Pakistan. He is one of thousands of desperate Pakistanis who have paid exorbitant sums to these people over the years to get to Europe.
He arrived in Europe on a ship from Greece in 2015, without any documents, after paying 150,000 Pakistani rupees ($525). She was in Germany for a while, before finally settling in Italy.
He arrived in Greece from Italy this week to search for answers and hopefully find his brothers, whom he had strictly warned not to continue on their way to Europe.
“I told them this was a dangerous route. I told them to come legally, but they trusted the agents,” Shiraz, originally from Gujrat in north-east Pakistan, told Anadolu in a phone call.
‘Game’ of social networks
For something so illegal, human traffickers in Pakistan are operating in the open, especially on social media.
There are entire Facebook groups dedicated to the illicit business.
They are also active on TikTok, giving desperate people hope to reach European shores, but only if they can shell out thousands of dollars.
These groups are full of slang like “dunky”, a word derived from dinghy and used to refer to the illegal crossing of boats.
Another commonly used word is “game,” which is used to refer to anything from “road game” to “boat game” to “taxi game.”
Reaching out to smugglers is as simple as sending a message to anyone on Facebook.
Using an anonymous account, Anadolu contacted a person who had posted an ad in one of the groups.
Within minutes, the person responded with an offer to arrange a ride from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, to Italy via Greece and Serbia, all for $12,000.
Others offer the route taken by the migrants who perished last week: a flight from Karachi to Dubai, followed by a layover of four to five hours before a flight to Egypt, and on to Libya and Italy.
Despite being the most expensive option, this route has been gaining popularity as countries tighten border controls.
‘big money’
“Human smuggling is a lucrative business and makes a lot of money,” said Asad Iqbal Butt, a prominent activist and co-chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
These agents “may collaborate with local law enforcement authorities, officials at the borders, and they may also have their people in the airlines or travel agency business,” he explained.
They also work with people in other countries, known as “subagents,” he added.
Agents reportedly collected between 2.3 million rupees ($8,000) and 3.5 million rupees ($12,200) from Pakistanis on the trawler that sank last week.
In some cases, smugglers allow people to pay after the trip, a sort of trust-building tactic.
Abid Rajorvi, who lost two cousins in the disaster in Greece, shared the story of another cousin who came to Italy without having to pay anything in advance.
“They told my cousin to bring $2,000 to $2,500 with him. They paid their plane tickets (Karachi to Dubai to Egypt) themselves,” he told Anadolu in a phone call.
“Once my cousin was about to get on the ship from Libya to Italy, his family in Pakistan was told to make full payment to an agent here.”
Rajorvi is from Bandli, a village in Pakistani-administered Kashmir that he says has lost 28 men to the Greek shipwreck.
She shed light on the staggering financial burden families take on to pay agents, saying many people sell property, jewelry and essentially deplete their life savings.
‘Global phenomenon’
In Pakistan, the main law enforcement authority in this area is the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Since the June 14 disaster, the agency has launched a broad crackdown, arresting at least 27 traffickers and recording 70 cases, a spokesman said on Friday.
However, the FIA has faced criticism for its inability to crack down on trafficking networks, with accusations against it ranging from negligence to complicity.
“If someone in the FIA is responsible for or involved in people smuggling, they must be held accountable,” said Bashir Memon, the agency’s former head.
However, he stated that migrant smuggling and smuggling is a “global phenomenon and not just limited to Pakistan.”
One of the difficulties in tracking these smugglers is that anyone can be an agent in Pakistan, Memon explained.
“It could be anyone; a bricklayer, a restaurant worker or a real travel agent. Plus, they don’t work alone, they have strong networks,” she added.
According to Memon, there has been an increase in the number of people trying to leave Pakistan through illegal means, particularly due to the worsening economic situation.
“Smugglers mainly target people living in Gujrat and Gujranwala,” he told Anadolu, referring to two cities in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province.
Butt, the HRCP official, said another visible change is the socio-economic status of people trying to leave Pakistan illegally.
“This used to be more prevalent among lower income groups, but now we are seeing an increase among middle-class families,” he added.
On the action now being taken against traffickers, Butt feared that the families of the victims would back down and not press charges, saying that has been a problem in the past.
“Families could get the cases back because the agents will offer to pay them or send someone else in their family to Europe for free,” he said.
In an ironic twist of fate, one of the families mourning a loss in the latest tragedy is that of a suspected drug dealer.
“There was an agent who sent his own son this time. Now he is behind bars and his son is dead,” said Rajorvi, the Bandli man.
“So what agents do to others can also happen to them.”
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