ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday called for a crackdown on the global human trafficking network after at least 40 Pakistan nationals drowned in a migrant shipwreck near the southern Italian coast.
The wooden boat, which had sailed from Turkiye and was carrying people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries, smashed into rocky reefs near the coast of Calabria and broke apart before dawn on Sunday.
Nearly 60 people, including a newborn and other children, were found dead by Monday morning, while 80 people survived the wreck, Italian authorities said, as rescue operations continued.
The death toll included dozens of Pakistanis, the Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Sajid Hussain Turi said.
“A crackdown on the criminal network of human trafficking worldwide is the need of the hour,” Turi added on Monday. “So far, thousands of people including children and women have lost their lives around the world.
“Deeply shocked by news of the sinking of a boat in Calabria, Italy, in which around 40 Pakistani migrants lost their lives.”
The Pakistani government will formulate a comprehensive strategy and launch a crackdown on human trafficking networks, he said.
“Since April 2022, over 600,000 people have been sent abroad for jobs … People are requested not to fall prey to human trafficking.”
Officials feared the death toll from Sunday’s shipwreck could rise, as at least 170 people were reportedly on board the small vessel, the UN refugee and migration agencies said in a statement.
“It is unacceptable to witness such horrors, with families and children entrusted to unseaworthy boats,” Chiara Cardoletti, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino, said in the statement.
Cardoletti pointed out that current rescue capacities in the EU must be strengthened as they were “still insufficient.”
In 2022, 105,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores, around 38,000 more than the previous year, according to figures from the Italian Interior Ministry.
People from Turkey accounted for around 15 percent of total arrivals by sea in Italy, the UNHCR said.
