‘Miracle’: Pakistani survivor of deadly Mediterranean crossing | Migration

Islamabad, Pakistan – When Hasan Ali fell into the icy waters of the Mediterranean Sea, he thought of his two children – their smiles, their hugs and their hopes for their future.

Then he remembered the others from his small village in the Punjab province of Pakistan who had dreamed of going to Europe, and perhaps they too had spent their last moments in the sea of ​​stones, thinking of their homes and the people they had left behind. .

“I had heard of many others,” says Hasan, speaking by phone from Malakasa, a refugee camp near Athens. He says he’s sure he’ll drown because he can’t swim.

Then he felt the rope – thrown from a merchant navy ship. “I kept it with my life,” he says.

Hasan was the first to be taken aboard the ship near the Greek island of Crete on the morning of Saturday, December 14. Many others will follow during the two-day rescue operation, which involves nine ships, including the Greek coast guard, as well as merchant navy ships and helicopters.

But not everyone could.

Greek authorities have confirmed at least five deaths and more than 200 survivors after four separate rescue operations by the coast guard over the weekend, but the total number of missing remains unclear.

On December 14-15, three boats carrying migrants capsized near the island of Gavdos, further south of Crete, and another boat near the Peloponnese peninsula.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the bodies of five Pakistani citizens and at least 47 Pakistanis were rescued. Pakistan’s embassy in Athens said at least 35 Pakistani citizens are missing.

“Living with Dignity”

Hasan’s journey began nearly three and a half months ago, when the 23-year-old left his wife and two infant sons in their village near the large industrial city of Gujrat.

The third of five siblings, he worked as a steel repairman on construction sites, earning 42,000 rupees ($150) a month, working 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

But no matter how hard he worked, no matter how long he worked, he struggled to stay afloat as prices rose.

“My electricity bill will be between 15,000 (US$54) and 18,000 rupees (US$64) per month,” he explains. “And groceries will cost about the same for my family, including my parents and two younger siblings.”

Hasan often had to take out small loans at the end of the month to make ends meet, and was always worried about what would happen if there was some kind of emergency in the family, like an illness.

“In Pakistan, it is impossible to live with dignity on this kind of income,” he says.

This made him take desperate measures. “Nobody would voluntarily risk their life like that,” he explains.

Hassan first spoke to his wife, mother and older brother and suggested that he follow the others in their village and go to Europe. His family agreed and decided to sell a small plot of land along with Hassan’s mother’s jewelry to finance the trip.

They raised nearly two million rupees ($7,100) to pay an “agent” who promised safe passage to Europe. The family had heard of people who had left but never arrived, but had also heard of people arriving safely in Italy within days of leaving Pakistan. Hasan felt a mixture of fear and excitement.

Just a few weeks later, he said goodbye to his family and boarded a plane from Sialkot to Saudi Arabia. He stayed there for two days before flying to Dubai. It flew from Dubai to Egypt and from there made its final flight to Benghazi, Libya.

‘He was brutally beaten’

In Libya, Hassan was not told he would be put on a boat to Italy, but instead he was taken to a warehouse measuring 6 meters by 6 meters (20 feet) where more than 100 people were being held. x 20 ft) room. Most of the men were from Pakistan. Many had been there for months.

The smugglers took Hasan’s phone, passport and a backpack containing some clothes and 50,000 rupees ($180) he was carrying.

Hasan says security guards from Libya and Sudan watched them all the time and warned them not to make noise.

“We got a piece of bread every day,” he explains, adding, “The guards gave us one five-minute bathroom break a day.”

He describes how anyone who complained about the lack of food or wanted to use the toilet or shower was beaten with steel rods and PVC pipes.

“All we could do was look at each other or whisper a little. “Whoever made a little noise, the guards would beat them mercilessly,” he says.

Sometimes the men begged to go home. But this will also be met with violence.

Then, in early December, the guards told the men they would be headed to Greece instead of being sent to Italy in bad weather. They were given 30 minutes to prepare to leave the room where they had been kept for months. Their phones and passports were returned to them.

“Everyone started praying”

Hasan, who had never seen the sea before, was terrified. “I begged to send me back to Pakistan, but they told us there was no going back. “Go ahead or die,” he says.

Hasan explains that more than 80 men were crammed aboard a dilapidated wooden boat designed to carry no more than 40 passengers.

The sea was treacherous. Hasan describes how “stormy winds and huge waves” “drenched and terrified” the men.

“The engines broke down and everyone started praying,” he says, adding that they were sure they were going to die.

Later, after 40 hours at sea, the boat capsized and Hasan and the others fell into the Mediterranean Sea.

“As soon as I fell into the water, I held my breath,” he recalls, describing how he tried to stay calm.

“When I came up, miraculously I was able to grab the rope that the ship had thrown to save us.”

As he pulls onto the deck, Hasan says he fell. He believes his survival is a miracle.

“It’s not worth the risk”

Hassan’s experience, unfortunately, is not unusual.

Gujrat, along with neighboring Pakistani cities such as Sialkot, Jhelum and Mandi Bahauddin, is a hub for people trying to reach Europe. With land routes increasingly closed, many now take the dangerous sea route via Libya.

According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 190,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe this year, with 94 percent, or more than 180,000, taking the perilous sea route.

UNHCR figures also show that nearly 3,000 Pakistanis have reached European shores this year, most of them in Italy and Greece. Last year, the corresponding figure was just over 8,000, a drop of at least 62 percent.

More than 700 people, including nearly 300 Pakistanis, died when the Adriana, an old fishing trawler, sank off the Greek island of Pylos in one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. June 2023.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2023 was the deadliest year in the Mediterranean since 2016, with more than 3,100 drowning deaths.

Hassan is now in the Malakasa camp with the survivors of the shipwreck and others, including some of the survivors of the Adriana disaster.

He cautiously hopes that he will be able to start doing some work in the camp so that he can send money to the family he speaks to once a day when he can pick up the phone.

He has a message for anyone thinking of embarking on the same journey.

“After what we’ve been through, I’m just begging people to never go down that road,” he says. “It’s not worth the risk.”