There were at least 209 Pakistani “victims” on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last week, according to data shared by the Federal Investigation Agency with Reuters on Thursday.
Witness accounts suggested that between 400 and 750 people had crammed onto the 20- to 30 metre-long (65- to 100-foot) fishing boat which then capsized and sank early on June 14 about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos.
The official death toll from the accident still stands at 82 and the number of survivors at 104, of whom 12 were Pakistanis.
Hundreds of people from different countries are believed to have been on board the vessel, in what is seen as the worst sea disaster in years for the region.
The FIA told Reuters that the figure of 209 Pakistani victims aboard is based on information provided by families who came forward to say a relative of theirs had boarded the boat heading from Libya towards Greece and were still missing. “An investigation to verify this is underway,” FIA Islamabad Zone Director Rana Abdul Jabbar said.
Meanwhile, the government is yet to officially confirm how many of its citizens were on the boat, but kick-started a DNA sampling effort to help Greece identify those who died.
The data shared by the FIA showed that 181 people were from Pakistan and 28 from Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Officials gathered the DNA samples from 201 families.
Earlier in the day, at a weekly press briefing, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said the country was in contact with authorities in Greece and investigations regarding the circumstances of the incident were underway.
State broadcaster a Radio Pakistan report quoted her as saying that Pakistan’s Mission in Greece had worked round the clock for the recovery and identification of Pakistani nationals who were missing or feared dead.
“Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has also spoken to his Greek counterpart to discuss arrangements for the recovery of the missing, identification of the bodies and providing relief to the survivors and our efforts will continue in this regard,” Zahrah added. Separately, in a statement, an FIA spokesperson said that 54 cases had been registered against human smugglers in Lahore, Gujranwala and Gujrat. He said FIA’s Lahore Zone had arrested 17 traffickers so far while seven suspects were captured in Gujrat, two in Lahore and eight in Gujranwala.