KARACHI: Several Pakistanis are feared to be among those still missing, two days after a fishing boat overloaded with migr­ants capsized and sank off Peloponnese in southern Greece.

Till Friday, at least 78 people have been confirmed dead while 104 people found alive, with 12 Pakistanis among them, the Embassy in Athens has confirmed.

In a statement on Friday, the Pakistani embassy said it has met the survivors.

The identity of the dece­a­sed was still unknown as the bodies were beyond recognition, the embassy said, adding that Greek officials will conduct DNA tests to ascertain the identities.

It has requested Pakis­tanis whose relatives are feared to be on the boat to send DNA samples for identification.

A short tandem repeat (STR) DNA report of the parents or children of the missing person from a recognised laboratory, along with the missing person’s identity card or passport number should be sent to the Embassy’s email addr­ess, the statement added.

Many from Azad Kashmir

According to several accounts, several people from different areas of Azad Kashmir were fea­red to be among the decea­sed or missing.

Muhammad Mubashir from the Kotli area of Azad Kashmir told BBC Urdu that his uncle and a close relative left for Italy after Ramazan.

They planned to reach Libya from Pakistan and then Italy, said Mr Bashir, adding that he had been unable to contact his relative in Libya for the past two days.

He added that a number of people from the Kel sector in Kotli left in recent month in hopes of reaching Europe.

A British-Pakistani journa­list, Raja Faryad Khan, told BBC that 16 people from his village in Azad Kashmir could have been on the boat.

Mr Khan travelled from the UK to the Greek port city of Kalamata to meet his 22-year-old nephew Adnan Bashir, who was one of the survivors.

Another man from Kotli, Maqsood Langrial, told BBC that his five close relatives and two dozen other people from his area are feared to be on the boat.

He said two men from his village who survived the crash have said that around 30 people from the area were on board.

The exact number of people aboard the boat is still unknown, with Greek officials citing unconfirmed reports saying that the total number of people might be around 750.

One survivor also told doctors in Kalamata that he had seen 100 children in the boat’s hold, broadcaster ERT reported.

Police on Thursday arrested nine Egyptians on suspicion of people smuggling — one of them the captain of the boat carrying the migrants.

Conflicting statements

The events leading up to the tragedy were still unclear with Greek coastguard and government officials saying their patrol boats and nearby cargo ships had been shadowing the fishing boat since Tuesday afternoon, after it was spotted by a surveillance plane from Europe’s Frontex agency.

They said the trawler had briefly stopped to take on food and water, but that a person on board insisted that no further assistance was needed and that those on board wished to continue their journey to Italy, AFP reported.

At 2240 GMT, the traw­ler notified Athens of engine failure. The nearby patrol boat “immediately tried to approach the trawler to determine the problem,” the coastguard said.

Twenty-four minutes later, the Greek patrol boat skipper radioed in that the boat had capsized. It sank within 15 minutes at 2:19am Greek time.

However, there are mounting questions as to whether the Greek coastguard should have intervened earlier to escort the aged trawler, clearly pack­ed with people, to safety.

There are also claims that the coastguard had attempted to drag it at excessive speed with the help of a rope. Government spokesman Ilias Siakan­taris confirmed Friday that a rope was thrown to “stabilise” the boat, but the migrants refused help

Emotional reunion

Amid despair and pain, a Syrian teenager who survived the wreck was emotionally reunited with his elder brother on Friday.

Mohammad, 18, from Syria, burst into sobs as he spotted his elder brother Fadi, who had travelled from the Netherlands searching for him.

They wept and hugged through metal barricades, erected by Greek police around a warehouse in Kalamata where survivors had been sleeping for the past two days.

The International Org­ani­sation for Migration (IOM) and the UN Human Rights Office have urged the world to address the gaps in search and rescue rules, Reuters reported.

“It is clear that the current approach to the Mediterranean is unworkable,” said IOM’s Federico Soda.

Jeremy Laurence, the UN Human Rights Office spokesperson, said the tra­g­edy “underscores the need to investigate people smu­gglers and human tra­f­fickers and ensure they are brought to justice”.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2023