- The FIA claims that officials erased the boat victims’ travel documents.
- He says smugglers have built shelters in Marutania.
- 3 smugglers including a woman arrested.
After at least 44 Pakistanis reportedly lost their lives in the Morocco migrant boat tragedy, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched a probe against its 20 officials who allegedly issued the victims’ travel documents in three major airports.
The development came after the federal government launched a high-level investigation into the tragic boat incident in Morocco in which dozens of Pakistani migrants drowned while trying to reach Spain from South Africa. the West at the beginning of the month.
In a statement released on Saturday, an FIA spokesperson said the agency had opened an investigation against its 20 officials, suspected of being involved in human trafficking. He added that authorities would have evacuated the victims of the ill-fated boat to airports.
The unfortunate incident occurred on January 16 when a boat carrying irregular migrants from the African nation of Mauritania to Spain capsized. 50 migrants, including 44 Pakistanis, are presumed dead.
Although 36 Pakistani citizens have been rescued, the rest still remain missing and, according to a Pakistan Embassy report, should be presumed dead.
The ill-fated boat left Mauritania on January 2 with 86 migrants on board. Moroccan authorities said 66 of the passengers were Pakistani nationals and said they had rescued 36 people after the crash.
The alleged FIA officials include eight from Faisalabad airport and six each from Karachi and Lahore airports. The agency also revealed that Mauritania was the “third and new route” for human trafficking after Turkey and Libya.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Ishaq Dar, also gave instructions for the coordination of the government’s response and asked the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Interior to ensure the provision of effective and timely assistance to the Pakistani victims of the Moroccan boat tragedy.
Dar chaired a meeting on issues related to relocation of Afghan nationals to third countries, APPLICATION reported citing a press release.
The meeting also examined in detail the boat tragedy off the Moroccan coast which left several people dead. The secretaries of the foreign and interior ministries and other officials were present at the meeting.
Three people smugglers arrested
In a major development today, the FIA arrested two suspected human smugglers, including a woman and her son from Gujrat, while another suspected trafficker was arrested from Bhimber area of Azad Jammu- and Kashmir.
Sources close to the FIA said that the accused woman had confessed to being involved in human trafficking along with her three sons. One of his sons, Khawar, had taken 10 people with him to Senegal following his previous visit to the African country in April 2024.
They revealed that the suspect’s son, Hasan, was residing in Italy while his other son had been on the run since the boat tragedy. The agency had collected details of a bank account and a mobile phone after arresting the woman from Jaurah village in Gujrat a day ago.
Safe houses in Mauritania
The human trafficking gang established itself in March 2024 by building shelters and began transporting people to Mauritania in June last year. Traffickers transported people to Senegal by air to Mauritania by land, according to the FIA.
According to the federal agency, several Pakistanis were still present in these shelters in Mauritania and wanted to reach Spain via Morocco.
The FIA said the main suspect in last month’s capsizing of a Greek boat, Qamaruz Zaman, was also present in Mauritania with several other traffickers who fled different countries to the northwest African country after an incident similar occurred in June 2023.
Among the human traffickers was also Afzal Jajja, who fled Libya following the terrible capsize of a boat near Greece.
It is pertinent to mention here that more than 80 Pakistanis were drowned after boats capsized near Greece on the night of December 13-14, 2024.