KHUIRATTA: Muhammad Yasin borrowed almost $8,000 to reach Europe by boat to try to build a better life for his young children. Now they are being DNA tested by Pakistan to see if their father is among the scores who died when their boat sank off Greece last week.
Most of the people on board were from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan and paid thousands of dollars to people traffickers like 28-year-old Yasin did. Hundreds more than the 81 confirmed victims are feared to have died. “He thought his kids’ future would be better”, Yasin’s brother Muhammad Ayub told Reuters as the two children, Subhan, 3, and 1-year-old Zulekha sat in his lap. “We’ve no idea where he is. If he’s alive or dead.”
In the hilltop town of Khuiratta, where the family was being tested, authorities know of at least 28 people who are either dead or missing.
The town, in AJK, like in some other parts of Pakistan, is known for people going to Europe to try to earn a better living. “Each family is giving at least two samples – father, mother or son or daughter,” the area’s assistant commissioner Mushtaq Ahmad said. “Some of the women don’t know their sons are missing, so we haven’t told them.”
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told Reuters that DNA samples were also being collected in other parts of the country from families who wanted to come forward voluntarily. They will be sent to Greece to help with identification.
In Lahore, the “prime accused” was involved in trafficking people to Europe through treacherous routes and rough seas.
The arrest of Mumtaz Arain came as Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had a useful telephonic conversation with his Greek counterpart Vassilis Kaskarelis pertaining to the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani and other migrants in the Ionian Sea last week.
Foreign Minister said in a Twitter post that he discussed the tragic disaster with Foreign Minister Vassilis Kaskarelis and agreed to work closely together to facilitate the Pakistanis in distress and for the identification and repatriation of retrieved bodies.
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