Islamabad, Pakistan – When Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif eliminated Ahmed Ishaq Jahangir from his place because the chief of the nation’s Federal Investigation Company (FIA) on Wednesday, he grew to become the highest-profile casualty in a sweeping organisational purge following the deaths of at least 43 Pakistanis off the coast of Morocco earlier in January.
The drowning incident got here to mild on January 15, when Moroccan authorities rescued 36 folks after their boat was stranded within the Mediterranean Sea for 13 days. A minimum of 37 others, together with a number of Pakistanis, stay lacking.
Simply 4 weeks earlier than that, Greek authorities and service provider navy ships carried out four separate rescue missions close to the Greek coast, saving no less than 200 folks, whereas near 50 died, no less than 40 of them Pakistanis.
These incidents have set off a uncommon crackdown by the Sharif-led authorities on officers who have been tasked with stopping the human smuggling networks that lure Pakistanis from rural cities and villages with desires of a life in Europe, and take them on harmful, unlawful migration routes that far too usually finish in loss of life and tragedy within the waters of the Mediterranean.
Earlier than Jahangir’s elimination, virtually 50 FIA officers have been dismissed for alleged negligence associated to each the Greece and Morocco incidents. Moreover, the FIA mentioned that greater than 50 officers had been blacklisted from serving at any immigration checkpoints or anti-human trafficking items throughout the nation, following a authorities inquiry, whereas a number of arrests have been made concentrating on people who facilitated human smuggling networks.
These strikes observe mounting criticism of the federal government for failing to dismantle human smuggling rackets and for its obvious lack of ability to safeguard the lives of residents who really feel compelled to take dangerous journeys to Europe in breach of migration legal guidelines.
A senior authorities official, who’s a part of the duty pressure shaped by Sharif, mentioned the prime minister was now keenly supervising the federal government’s response.
“The premier is taking these incidents very significantly. He realises the implications and reputational injury to the nation, in addition to the tragedy that afflicts the households of those that die or get caught in far-off international locations,” the official advised Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity.
“We’ve got improved not solely our border screening however are additionally specializing in enforcement and prosecution. Now, smuggling somebody out of Pakistan goes to be a frightening job,” the official claimed.
An extended historical past of migration
That is simpler mentioned than achieved, because the current deaths off Morocco – regardless of the Sharif administration’s ongoing crackdown – present.
Pakistanis in search of emigrate to European nations is just not a brand new phenomenon. The development started greater than six a long time in the past, following the development of Pakistan’s main hydroelectric challenge, the Mangla Dam.
The preliminary wave of migrants consisted of these displaced by the dam’s development. They have been compensated by the Pakistani and British governments, permitting them to relocate to the UK.
Most got here from Punjab, Pakistan’s most affluent and populous province, notably from cities corresponding to Gujrat, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Mandi Bahauddin and Faisalabad.
A 2023 analysis report by the Nationwide Fee of Human Rights (NCHR), an autonomous state physique accountable to parliament, revealed that the identical districts that contribute closely to authorized migration additionally see among the highest cases of undocumented migration.
“Among the many prime 20 districts contributing to 50 p.c of the whole labour outflows from Pakistan between 1981 and 2021, 13 are in Punjab, six in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one in Sindh, particularly Karachi,” the report famous.
Whereas central Punjab has skilled financial progress as a consequence of its fertile land and industrial growth, migration from this area continued – usually illegally – after European nations tightened their border controls on the flip of the century.
In response to statistics from Frontex, the European Union’s border and coastguard company, greater than 150,000 Pakistanis have entered European international locations utilizing land and sea routes since 2009.
Land routes have been extra widespread within the 2010s when financial migrants from Pakistan would undertake perilous journeys on foot, typically strolling for months. Nevertheless, as crackdowns intensified, the routes advanced.
Whereas the earlier decade noticed an inflow of refugees into Europe from Afghanistan and Syria, two international locations dealing with extended battle, and from some African nations, Pakistan’s migration numbers remained comparatively constant, with a median of near 10,000 undocumented Pakistanis getting into Europe every year, in response to Frontex.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, new migration routes emerged, making it tougher for Pakistani authorities to detect undocumented travellers.
Practically 300 Pakistanis have been killed or declared lacking within the June 2023 Adriana boat disaster within the Mediterranean. Households advised Al Jazeera that their sons had flown from Pakistan to Dubai, then to Cairo, earlier than making their strategy to Libya for a ship journey to Europe.
And if that route was lengthy, the journey that Pakistanis who died off Morocco in January took was much more circuitous: from Pakistan to Dubai, then to Ethiopia, then Senegal, and eventually, a street journey up the Atlantic Coast to Mauritania, the place they started the boat journey.
Munir Masood Marath, a senior FIA official, defined that the operations of human smugglers, who handle huge networks throughout a number of international locations, are usually not straightforward to cease as a result of, on the floor, immigrants don’t at all times come throughout as “unlawful”: Their paperwork to journey out of Pakistan are respectable, and officers haven’t any sureshot approach of realizing what they intend to do after touchdown of their first vacation spot.
“Folks now journey on fully respectable grounds. They’ve a sound passport, a sound visa, and a ticket. There isn’t a purpose to cease them on the airport,” he advised Al Jazeera in a current dialog at his workplace.
However the Adriana catastrophe was a serious turning level, the federal government official on Sharif’s job pressure mentioned. The fishing trawler, carrying about 700 folks, capsized off the Greek coast close to Pylos. Solely 104 folks survived, together with 12 Pakistanis.
“After the 2023 incident, we took a tough take a look at our operations and started an enormous crackdown. The outcomes are actually seen within the declining numbers of Pakistanis leaving the nation,” he mentioned.
The statistics seem to help this declare. In response to FIA figures, about 19,000 folks have been stopped from leaving Pakistan in 2022, with most being intercepted on land routes.
In contrast, FIA’s Marath famous that, collectively, in 2023 and 2024, near 70,000 folks have been stopped from leaving Pakistan. Frontex information additionally reveals an almost 50 percent decline within the variety of Pakistanis reaching Europe in 2024, about 5,000 in contrast with 10,000 the 12 months earlier than.
But Marath, who not too long ago returned from Morocco after investigating the most recent tragedy, additionally acknowledged that smugglers have been figuring out and utilizing new routes in a cat-and-mouse sport with authorities.
That’s the reason, he mentioned, the federal government was now enhancing surveillance and detection mechanisms on the nation’s key exit factors.
“We profile travellers by taking a look at their journey historical past and social and academic background. If an individual’s vacation spot is Egypt, Ethiopia, or Senegal – African international locations with minimal cultural or people-to-people ties with Pakistan – it raises alarm bells,” he defined.
The social drivers
Pakistan has persistently ranked amongst, or near, the highest 10 international locations whose residents have sought entry into Europe by means of irregular means during the last decade, in response to Frontex.
Whereas the previous two years noticed the nation’s economic system teetering on the point of default, with inflation hitting 38 p.c in mid-2023 and poverty charges reaching 39 p.c, the federal government insists financial hardship is just not the only real purpose for migration.
Officers argue that social pressures play a extra important position.
Marath, who himself hails from Mandi Bahauddin, a district from the place irregular migration is widespread, mentioned that household affect and peer strain have been the important thing drivers behind the harmful journeys.
“Generally, households themselves urge their members to discover a strategy to attain Europe,” he mentioned.
“It turns into a matter of competitors. If a neighbour has two sons in Italy and has purchased a automobile and renovated his home, others really feel pressured to do the identical, both by going themselves or sending their sons,” he added.
The current Morocco incident concerned folks from comparatively well-off households, together with enterprise house owners and people with prior expertise working within the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Marath mentioned that whereas Gulf nations, together with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are host to a big Pakistani diaspora working there, for a lot of, their goal is to emulate their cousins who’re in European international locations.
“Going to Gulf international locations is normally a backup plan. The dream is Europe. Having household or associates there makes settling in simpler,” Marath defined.
A altering panorama
The current crackdown on officers factors to the federal government’s intent, the senior authorities official on Sharif’s job pressure recommended.
“There are clearly various elements at play, however the important thing level is that we recognise them, and we’re working to make things better,” the official mentioned.
He added that hundreds of Pakistanis remained stranded in Libya, and that the federal government was working in the direction of their repatriation.
“Libya is a problem as a result of lack of an organised authorities, with totally different factions controlling totally different areas. If these nonetheless there try and cross into Europe, bringing them again will likely be troublesome,” he mentioned. “However for others who attempt to go away Pakistan for this objective, we’re hopeful about cracking down on human smuggling.”
Nevertheless, Marath, the FIA official, mentioned that apart from bettering enforcement and coaching for the FIA workers, it was simply as necessary to offer sensitisation and consciousness to the individuals who put their lives in danger “knowingly”.
“Folks pay wherever between 2.5 to three.5 million rupees [$8,900 to $12,500] to smugglers. Why not use that cash to construct a future right here as an alternative of risking their lives?” he requested.
