EVER since news broke of the tragic sinking off the coast of Greece of a migrant boat carrying hundreds of Pakistanis, the town of Khuiratta has been in constant mourning. The air hangs heavy with the sense of loss; at least 28 young men from this area were among those killed or lost at sea in the wreck.

A kilometre-and-a-half outside the main town lies the village of Bihal. Home to around 12,000 people, nearly every family in this community has at least one or two members settled abroad. This is reflected in the prosperity of the otherwise isolated settlement, and most of the houses here are nicely-built concrete affairs, located on hilly ridges.

It is here, in the Simla’n neighbourhood of Bihal, where I encounter a household that was an exception. Rather than grief, there is joy in the eyes of the family members, because the seas have returned their son, Muhammad Hassan, who reached home from Libya a couple of weeks ago, following a close call with the angel of death in the Mediterranean.

With media attention focused on those who lost their loved ones last month, I decided to visit this family to hear first-hand the account of a survivor of an earlier failed migrant crossing into Europe. At the entrance to the three-storey house, Hassan’s elder brother Mian Shakeel, greeted me warmly and escorted me to the drawing room.

AJK assembly member calls on govt to take up issue of Pakistanis languishing in Libyan jails

“Actually, ever since he has returned, Hassan spends most of his time in the bed, recovering the sleep he lost over the past two months in Libya,” he tells me.

Inside their drawing room a bearded Hassan bids me welcome. After exchanging pleasantries, I ask him more probing questions, and he begins to narrate the harrowing tale of what befell him.

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Hassan and six others from Bihal were lured by the local broker of a Libya-based human trafficker into joining a danki — the term for illegal voyage to Italy from Libyan shores.

The agents in Pakistan, it is said, take a hefty payment for their services as soon as their prey land in Libya.

Hassan and his friends flew for Benghazi via Cairo on April 11 from Karachi and reached their destination after more than 24 hours. Hardly a day after their arrival, the agent called up their families in Pakistan to ask for payments. Shakeel tells me his family paid a total of Rs 2.2 million to someone in Kotli’s Sehensa area, which came to Rs15.4 million for all seven.

Before he left, Hassan said the agents painted a rosy picture of what awaited them in Libya. “They tell you that you will be sent [to Europe] on a ship, but when you get there, all you see is a worn-out fishing trawler.”

It was on May 18 when he, along with around 550 other people, a majority of whom were also from Pakistan, boarded a vessel much smaller than the one that sank on June 14.

“I tell you it was not a perfect game,” he says, using another term for danki which is more commonly found on social media platforms, such as TikTok.

Over the next four days, the vessel struggled to make it out of Libyan waters. On the fifth day, it broke down, Hassan recalls with a shiver.

“By a stroke of luck, a Libyan coastguard vessel detected us and made two to three attempts to salvage our boat through ropes, but it was all in vain. Then, as the winds picked up and the tide rose, the coastguard left us in the open seas, saying they will return the next day.”

“I cannot put into words how we spent that night, with the fear of becoming fish food dominating our thoughts at every moment.”

The occupants of this boat luckily survived after their vessel was pulled to safety by the coastguard the following morning, but they had to spend the next 18 days in custody, in what Hassan described as abject conditions.

“While he was languishing there, we were in agony because during that time, we had no contact with Hassan,” his brother recalls.

“It seems the Libyan coastguard are in cahoots with the human traffickers. The authorities arrest and release illegal travellers at the traffickers’ bidding so the latter can extort money from hapless families,” he alleges, a claim I have heard from many other families in Khuiratta.

“[The agents] discourage people from going back to Pakistan, because they fear they will demand their money back once they get home,” Shakeel says.

He recalls how he got a message from his brother, asking for help with returning to the country. “Some members of our family, who are based in the UK, contacted the agent and assured him that they would not ask for the money to be returned. They also arranged for Hassan’s return ticket from the UK,” he tells me.

Hassan was lucky enough to finaly make it home on June 22, but the six friends he set out with, as well as scores of other Pakistanis, were not so fortunate.

According to Hassan, many of those stranded in Libya were either living in accommodations akin to concentration camps, managed by the human traffickers, or languishing in jails, where they were vulnerable to different diseases.

While here, I also come to hear the story of 27-year-old Muhammad Habib from Taniyot village. He had also travelled to Libya six months ago, along with three others hopeful of making it to Italy. But fate had something else in store for them, and all four ended up in a Libyan prison.

On June 7, Habib’s family learned that he had died of illness while in prison. Somehow, they made arrangements to repatriate the body, which arrived on June 17, three days after the Greek boat tragedy.

Even now, weeks after his burial, the family’s residence is frequented by relatives and acquaintances who wish to express their condolences.

But more than condoling with the family, one of the major concerns that preoccupies many is the safety of those young men who are still trapped in Libya, having been caught while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

Ever since authorities started cracking down on human traffickers and their agents in AJK, the concerns of the families of those still languishing in foreign lands have only increased.

Those who still have hope of securing the return of their loved ones are hesitant to speak out against the agents, because in many cases they are the only connection to the person trapped in Libya. In other cases, they fear some ill may befall their son if they go to the authorities here.

Chaudhry Rafique Nayyar, a member of the AJK Legislative Assembly, claims that more than 300 people, mostly youngsters, from Khuiratta alone are at the mercy of such unscrupulous agents in Libya.

According to him, following the tragedy that befell the Greek vessel, the agents have told the stranded persons that strict vigilance in the coastal areas has made their crossings into Europe impossible until March next year.

“In this changed scenario, the families as well as those stranded in foreign countries want to return home, but are unable to do so; many of them have either lost their travel documents or don’t have the money to pay for travel costs.”

In his view, Pakistan should adopt a more proactive approach to address this humanitarian crisis.

“The government should contact the Libyan government at the highest level to facilitate the safe return of those still stranded there. We should also equip our youth with the skills that are in high demand in Europe, so that they can go for legal migration,” he says.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2023