16 Pakistanis rescued, four still missing after Italy shipwreck

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday confirmed that four Pakistani citizens were missing and 16 had survived after a boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern coast of Italy, ARY News reported.

Taking to Twitter, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that a senior embassy official today met the 16 Pakistani survivors of the capsised vessel. “They seemed in good physical edition,” she added.

A senior Embassy official today met 16 Pakistani survivors of capsized vessel. They seemed in good physical condition. According to them there were 20 Pakistanis on the ship. Embassy is in close contact with Italian authorities to verify status of the 4 missing Pakistanis. (2/2)

— Spokesperson 🇵🇰 MoFA (@ForeignOfficePk) February 27, 2023

“According to them there were 20 Pakistanis on the ship,” the FO spokesperson said.

“Embassy is in close contact with Italian authorities to verify the status of the four missing Pakistanis,” she said, adding that the Pakistani embassy in Italy continued to “vigorously follow the case”.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif said reports about the drowning of Pakistani citizens were “deeply concerning and worrying”. He directed the FO to ascertain facts as “early as possible and take the nation into confidence”.

The reports of the drowning of over two dozen Pakistanis in a boat tragedy in Italy are deeply concerning & worrisome. I have directed Foreign Office to ascertain facts as early as possible & take the nation into confidence.

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) February 27, 2023

Italy coastguard combs beaches

Italy’s coastguard searched the sea and beaches for bodies following a shipwreck off Calabria, as authorities tried to identify the dead and the government’s migrant policy came under scrutiny.

The overloaded wooden boat broke up and sank early Sunday in stormy seas off Italy’s southern coast, with bodies, shoes and debris washing up along a long stretch of shoreline.

The death toll rose Monday to 62 people, a coast guard official told AFP — and that number looked likely to increase.

Sergio di Dato, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team offering psychological support to the survivors, said there were cases of children orphaned in the disaster.

“One Afghan 12-year-old boy lost his entire family, all nine of them — four siblings, his parents and other very close relatives,” he told journalists.

At Le Castella, where a 15th-century fortress dominates the shoreline, an AFP journalist witnessed the coastguard recovering the body of a woman who looked to be in her early 20s.

‘Many missing minors’

Local officials said the search was ongoing for around 20 people still believed missing, though survivors have given differing versions as to how many people were originally on the boat.

Forensic police set about identifying the victims, issuing an email address to which relatives searching for loved ones could send distinguishing details, from eye and hair colour to tattoos or piercings.

The Save the Children charity said on Twitter it was supporting survivors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, including 10 minors who had been travelling with their families.

“There are many missing minors,” it wrote.

The charity said survivors described how “during the night, near the coast, they heard a loud boom, the boat broke and they all fell into the water.”

The survivors were “in shock… some say they saw relatives fall into the water and disappear, or die”.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said Monday that 16 Pakistanis were among those rescued, but four were reported missing.

A Pakistani official tasked with fighting human trafficking told AFP that the number of people trying to leave Pakistan was growing because “of the deterioration in the economic situation and lack work.”

The official said on condition of anonymity that there were an estimated 40,000 Pakistanis trying to enter European countries each year.

The boat was reported to have set sail from Izmir in Turkey last week. Three suspected human traffickers were arrested and police were searching for a fourth, media reports said Monday.