Vessel carrying 65 sinks off Libyan coast; Pakistani embassy seeks details of nationals

The Foreign Office on Monday said Pakistan’s embassy in Libya was seeking details of “Pakistani affectees” as a vessel carrying around 65 passengers capsized near the Marsa Dela port.

The development follows a similar incident last month in which a boat carrying 80 passengers capsized near Morocco. While the identities of at least 13 Pakistanis killed in the incident were confirmed, over 40 Pakistanis were reportedly murdered by African human traffickers on the boat and only 22 survived the tragedy.

In a statement today, the FO said: “Our Embassy in Tripoli has informed that a vessel carrying approximately 65 passengers capsized near the port of Marsa Dela, northwest of Zawiya city, Libya.”

It added that the Pakistan Embassy in Tripoli had immediately dispatched a team to “Zawiya hospital to assist the local authorities in [the] identification of the deceased”.

“The embassy is also trying to ascertain further details of the Pakistani affectees,” the statement said.

It is unclear if the passengers onboard the vessel were migrants.

“The Crisis Management Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa) has been activated to monitor the situation,” the FO said, providing the following contact details for any query:

Pakistan representative, Tripoli

03052185882 (WhatsApp)

+218 913870577 (Cell)

+218 916425435 (WhatsApp)

Crisis Management Unit, Mofa, Islamabad

Phone No.: 051-9207887

Email: cmu1@mofa.gov.pk

29 bodies of migrants recovered in Libya last week

Last week, the bodies of at least 29 migrants were recovered in two locations in the southeast and west of Libya, a security directorate and the Libyan Red Crescent said, according to Reuters.

The Alwahat district Security Directorate said in a statement on Thursday that 19 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in a farm in Jikharra area, some 441 kilometres from Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, and said the deaths were related to smuggling activities.

Separately, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Facebook late on Thursday that its volunteers recovered the bodies of 10 migrants earlier in the day after their boat sank off Dila port in Zawiya — the same city referred to in the FO statement today.

The Red Crescent posted pictures showing volunteers on the dockside placing bodies in white plastic bags, while one volunteer put numbers on one of the bags.

It said the bodies were found in a total of three graves on the farm, with one grave holding one body, a second grave holding four bodies, and the remaining 14 bodies found in the third grave.

“The bodies were all referred to a forensic doctor to conduct the necessary tests,” the directorate said.

Libya has turned into a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Previous boat tragedies

In December, about 40 Pakistanis died in boat capsize incidents off the coast of Greece, with 35 of them presumed dead after going missing. According to the FO, 47 Pakistanis were among those rescued.

Around 50 Federal Investigation Agency officials have been booked and dismissed from service over their alleged collusion with human smugglers in illegally sending Pakistanis abroad. Similarly, 65 FIA officials were blacklisted for posting at any immigration check post.

Boat tragedies have prompted the FIA to introduce “rigorous screening” at all airports of the country, as a result of which it offloaded 2,500 passengers in January at Lahore airport alone.

In June 2023, an Italy-bound fishing trawler reportedly carrying at least 800 people capsized off Greece. It was one of the deadliest boat disasters ever in the Mediterranean Sea and data suggested up to 300 Pakistani victims were onboard.

In April of the same year, Pakistanis were among dozens dead as two migrant boats sank in the Mediterranean off different towns in western Libya.

In February of that year, Pakistanis were among 59 people killed when a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern Italian coast.