![]() “They told us we should not bring any food or anything else because it is all available on the boat.” “We said ‘no problem,’ so long as the boat was big and in good shape,” he told Rudaw late Sunday, speaking by phone from a closed reception center near Athens where survivors have been moved. He told Kurdish TV Rudaw that he and other relatives from Kobani, including a younger brother who died, had agreed to pay smugglers $4,000 each for the trip - a sum later raised to $4,500. But many accounts - backed by Sheikhi - say up to 750 people were on board. Only 104 survivors have been found so far, and 81 bodies recovered. Instead, the ship sank in international waters two hours after midnight on June 14. Then, he would eventually bring over his wife and three young sons. The full details of the incident remain unclear.Īli Sheikhi, a Kurdish man from the war-scarred town of Kobani in northeast Syria, had hoped the vessel would take him to a better life in Europe. It argued that they refused any assistance and insisted on proceeding to Italy, adding that it would have been too dangerous to try and evacuate hundreds of unwilling people off an overcrowded ship. The coast guard has also been widely criticized for not trying to rescue the migrants before their vessel sank. Officials in Athens have insisted that the metal fishing boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy was at no point under tow, and only had a line briefly attached to it hours before it capsized and foundered. The new accounts raised further questions about the Greek coast guard’s response from the moment it located the ship until it went down. Senior Pakistani officer Khalid Chauhan said Sunday that police picked up the suspects amid the crackdown on traffickers and were interrogating them for their alleged roles in luring, trapping and extracting huge amounts of money to send the men abroad.Ībdul Jabbar, a top official at the Federal Investigation Agency, appealed to families of those who died in the boat incident or went missing to come forward and share information about the smugglers.MALAKASA, Greece (AP) - The number of confirmed victims from one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean rose to 81 Monday after three more bodies were found off southern Greece, as more survivors claimed that the battered trawler had been under tow by another vessel just before it sank with hundreds of people aboard. So far, authorities have detained nearly two dozen suspects, including two key suspected traffickers in Pakistan, and at least 12 people involved in sending young men to Libya for the onward journey to Europe. “All the people involved in this tragedy will be brought to justice,” the minister pledged in a statement, adding that Sharif’s government will further toughen existing laws to include harsh punishments for human traffickers. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said the country’s Federal Investigation Agency launched a crackdown against traffickers, arresting key suspects in the eastern city of Lahore and in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province. Pakistani national soccer team player Shahiza Raza died in March in a shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast when she embarked on the dangerous voyage to Europe find medical treatment for her disabled 3-year-old son. Some of Pakistan’s tragedies in migrant crossings have been widely publicized. “We are waiting for a miracle and miracles do happen,“ Sawan told The Associated Press by phone from the city of Gujrat in Punjab province, from where an estimated 50 people are missing. Student Sawan Raza, 20, said his brother, Ali Reza, 28, had tried to make it to Europe with the help from human smugglers, to find a better job. Meanwhile, relatives of the missing were praying for their safety. Desperate for a better life, many Pakistanis pay up to $8,000 to traffickers to smuggle them to Europe through Iran, Libya and Turkey. Pakistani police said they were interrogating three arrested traffickers in connection with the sinking. Pakistan’s Embassy in Athens has so far identified 12 Pakistani nationals rescued by the coast guard, but no information was available about those who went missing after the vessel sank. ![]() ![]() ![]() A search-and-rescue operation has since been underway. The vessel was carrying as many as 750 people, including scores of Pakistanis, when it sank in international waters. The fishing trawler packed with migrants overturned and went down early Wednesday off southwestern Greece in one of the deadliest-ever incidents in the central Mediterranean Sea. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |