Bodies of 15 Pakistani victims of Greek shipwreck repatriated to country — foreign office

Medical staffs carry a survivor on a stretcher outside a warehouse at the port in Kalamata town, on June 14, 2023, after a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank in international waters in the Ionian Sea. (AFP/File)

• Pakistani authorities estimated that over 350 Pakistani nationals were aboard the ill-fated ship
• Foreign office spokesperson says no additional Pakistani national identified through DNA matching

ISLAMABAD: Bodies of 15 Pakistani victims of last month’s shipwreck off the coast of Greece have been repatriated and returned to their families, confirmed the foreign office spokesperson on Thursday, adding no additional Pakistani nationals were found among the deceased following DNA matching.

A total of 104 people were rescued, and 82 bodies recovered from the sea after an aging fishing vessel carrying around 750 illegal migrants from Libya to Italy, with the majority of them from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt, sank off the coast of Greece on June 14.

Pakistani authorities estimated that over 350 nationals of their country were aboard the ill-fated ship, with nearly 200 families providing DNA samples to the embassy in Greece to identify their loved ones.

“The mortal remains of 15 Pakistanis who perished in the disaster have arrived in Pakistan and handed over to their families in the districts of Gujarat, Gujranwala, Mandi Bahauddin, Rawalpindi, Sheikhupura, Vehari, and Mirpur,” Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters on Thursday during her weekly news conference.

 

 

“The Greek authorities have also informed that they have completed the process of DNA matching of the retrieved dead bodies, and no additional Pakistani national has been identified among the deceased.”

The rusty trawler was carrying Pakistanis who were fleeing adverse economic conditions at home in search of a better life in Europe. Young men, primarily from eastern Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, often use a route through Iran, Libya, Turkiye, and Greece to enter Europe.

Passengers on the ill-fated trawler had to subsist on meager food and water supplies, which ran out several hours before the disaster, according to accounts provided by the survivors.

Following the tragedy, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed stern action against smugglers involved in the incident. The Pakistani authorities have since been cracking down on human smugglers and have arrested over a dozen suspects in raids primarily in Pakistan’s Punjab province.