Islamabad, Pakistan – The Rehan Aslam family has managed a car transportation, car rental, and grocery stores. Rihan helped manage these companies.

But five months ago, the 34 -year -old sold his car, the Toyota Hess car, for 4.5 million rupees (16,000 dollars) to pay an agent that would help him to leave him in his village, Jura, in the Google area of ​​Pakistan, Benjab County, in search of A future in Europe.

He never did so.

Rehan, a father of a girl and a boy, was among the 86 people who boarded a passenger boat on January 2 near Noukchott, the capital of Mauritania in West Africa, with the goal of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa controlled by Spain.

They were cut off at sea for more than 13 days, the ship was finally rescued by the Moroccan authorities – with only 36 survivors. Rabia Cassori, Pakistan’s representative ambassador to Morocco, confirmed that at least 65 Pakistanis on the boat: 43 of them died, while they survived 22.

Rihan was among those who died.

He just wanted to reach Europe. This was his dream, and he told us not to create any obstacles on his way. “All he wants is to search for better opportunities outside Pakistan for his three children.”

The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Saturday that it will return to the homeland the 22nd of the last boat accident off the coast of Morocco, but there is a little closure on the horizon for the families of those who died.

Instead, she left the tragedy in the wake of a series of questions. How people died on the boat? Why were they traveling to Europe from West Africa – an unlikely and new road for irregular Pakistani immigrants?

And why was people like Rihan, one of the families who have some financial stability, risk their lives to reach Europe in the first place?

“Torture to death”

This incident comes on the western Mediterranean road just weeks after four other ships sank in the middle of the Mediterranean in December last year. In those tragedies, 200 people were rescued, but nearly 50 dead or missing, including at least 40 Pakistanis.

One of the bloodiest wreckage of the Mediterranean in the Mediterranean occurred in June 2023When more than 700 people, among them died of nearly 300 Pakistani, died after Adriana, which is hunting hunting in fishing, near the Greek island of Pylos.

In the last incident, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially announced on January 16 that the boat “turned” near an income, a city of a port in the disputed Western Sahara region controlled by Morocco. But the families of the victims claim that their loved ones were “beaten” and “torture” before being thrown abroad.

press release

The boat accident is transported off the coast of Morocco pic.twitter.com/0znvrjwf4m

– Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@FETIGNOFFICEPK) January 16, 2025

Aslam, 49, said that the survivors of his village stated that the pirates on another boat attacked them, stole their property and assaulted the passengers with the hammers before some were thrown into the sea.

He said: “We were able to talk to some of the surviving children in the income, who participated in how to attack the pirates over and over a week, torture people and throw them abroad.”

Chaudhry is the best Gorsi, a similar man, a businessman from the village of Dhola near the city of Gujrat in the Benjab County.

Gores, his nephews, Atf Shihzad and Sufyan Ali, who paid 3.5 million rupees (12,500 dollars) for agents to facilitate their journey. The survivors reported the brutal conditions of their deaths.

“These children sold their lands to raise money and left last August,” Gorsi told Al -Jazeera. He said: “But I never imagined that they would meet such a heinous fate – a physical attack, torture and throw it into the water.”

In the wake of the boat’s rescue last week, the Pakistani government sent an investigation team to Rabat to investigate these allegations. However, their report has not yet been published.

“We are still conducting our investigations and conducted interviews with the survivors of their experiences,” Pakistan’s Ambassador, Pakistan, Pakistan Ambassador to Morocco, told Al -Jazeera from the newspaper. She said that the investigators are still “trying to know the details of what was revealed during the days when the boat was cut off.”

New path

Although it is one of the most fertile areas in Pakistan, the homeland of many industries that manufacture electronic goods such as refrigerators, fans, sports commodities, surgical goods, and Punjab areas in Googists, Salkut, Gilum, and Mandi Bahoudin, were centers for people It seeks to migrate To Europe for decades.

According to Frontx, the Coast and Coast Guard agency arrived in the European Union, nearly 150,000 irregular immigrants from Pakistan have reached Europe using land and naval roads, since 2009, when the agency began to maintain the records of migrants entering the European Union.

Most of the Pakistanis, who usually travel to the United Arab Emirates, then make trips to Egypt and Libya before trying to a cruise across the Mediterranean.

Kasuri, the Acting Envoy, said the western road of the Mediterranean Sea is not common for Pakistanis looking for irregular migration. Pakistani officials said this choice from the road may be the result of Frontex’s attempts and the Pakistani authorities to tighten their restrictions on irregular migration.

In general, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, through nearly 200,000 people to Europe across different roads in the Mediterranean in 2024, while at least 2824 deaths or missing were declared.

But while these figures are still important, FRINEX has been reported to a 38 percent decrease in irregular border crossings to the European Union in 2024, which represents the lowest levels since 2021.

Data Frontx reveals that although just over 10,000 Pakistani arrived in Europe in 2023, the numbers decreased by half the following year, as about 5,000 people entered Europe through irregular means using Earth or the sea.

Since Adriana drowned in June 2023, which caused a national anger, the Pakistani authorities said they have increased and improved their offer to inhibit human smuggling networks, Moner Masoud Marath, a senior official of the Pakistani Federal Investigation Agency. But the smugglers, in response, searched and found new ways.

“This is a cat and mouse game, and we continue to track the smuggling network, they also find different ways to search for people and lure them to use it,” said Marath to Al -Jazeera Island in an interview.

Rio flew from Faisal Abad in Punjab to Dubai. Then to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, then to Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar, the agent took Rayhan and others in their group by road to Nokchut, in the north along the Atlantic Coast.

Aslam the client said, he was known to the family. Rayhan did not face ill -treatment from the agent or his assistants, and he was often able to speak with his family to the home over the phone.

Until his death, Rihan’s journey seemed better than what many immigrants should bear for such trips – something that he knew safely than his own experience.

The temptation of “lifestyle” in Europe

More than two decades ago, in 2003, Aslam also tried to a risky journey to Europe – across Earth, to Greece. Along with a group of 50 to 80 people from the Google region, and made its way to the southern West Pakistani Baluchistan province, where the smugglers assisted him, others across the border and enter Iran.

“We continued walking on foot for several months, and when we slow down, they are [smugglers] Remember his journey.

But nearly two months after walking and hiding, when the group finally reached a Turkish border, Aslam surrendered and decided to return to their homes.

“I just told them that I couldn’t walk anymore. I showed them blisters on my feet and penetrated to allow me to leave.” They allowed him to leave. Aslam added: “It is a miracle that survived that ordeal.”

Since then, the family has built its work, and Aslam, one of the five brothers, said they were financially safe. He said that the brothers are now running a successful car rental company with “a fleet consisting of 10 to 15 vehicles”, as well as grocery stores. It also has a small piece of agricultural land.

“Our family has settled well, and Rihan helped me in our business,” Aslam said. “But after failing several times to secure visas to Canada or the United Kingdom, he decided to risk [going to Europe without documents]”

Marath, the FIA ​​official, pointed out that although economic reasons play their role in forcing people to carry out such risky trips, there is a social aspect. Families, even those stable financially, see their neighbors, friends and relatives have arrived in Europe in boasting their upward social movement.

Aslam explained that wealth seduction, better opportunities, and a “chance to live in a more fair society” led people to withstand life -threatening risks.

“There is such rot in our society, people do not get justice for small things,” he said. “Often, when our car walks between cities, traffic police prevent people looking for random bribes. For many, it is an integral part of doing business here, but for some, like my brother, they had enough of it.”

Georse also remembered how his nephews worked in Dubai in a construction company that helped her before he decided to follow their European dreams.

Both of these children wanted to find a way to reach Europe. They see the lifestyle of some of our fellow villagers who managed to send their children to Europe, and how they gave them an upward social movement. Therefore, these two wanted to try their luck. “

However, despite his special journey in 2003, and the death of his nephew in January, he was a fatal safest – as if he was making peace with the dangerous decisions that led to the death of Rihan.

“Our brother has taken this option,” he said. “We were aware of this, despite the risks.”