Daily Times

According to reports of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and IBMS (International Border Management System), the people belong to nine districts of Punjab including Mandi Bahauddin, Gujrat, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Jhelum, Toba Tek Singh, Hafizabad, Sheikhupura, Hafizabad and Bhimber (AJK) are on the top in illegal migration (human trafficking).

FIA has ordered strict scrutiny of documents of those travelling first time on Umrah visas or going abroad. According to IBMS data, illegal immigrants are transported through 15 countries as their transit routes to reach Europe and travel by Fly Dubai, and Ethiopian Air Lines.

According to reports, in major boat-sinking incidents; in Libya in 2023, Greece in 2024 and Morocco in 2025, the majority of travellers who died or survived were Pakistanis and went abroad on Umrah or tourist visas. As mentioned above, all who died and survived belonged to Punjab’s nine districts.

According to the data available, from last July to December 2024, the maximum movement of travellers is recorded. Moreover, according to reports, the main target of travellers is to reach Europe (illegally). In the first phase, they get visas from one of 15 different countries as transit routes of Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Senegal, Kenya, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Mauritius.

It is worth mentioning here that most of the illegal immigrants are aged between 15-40 years. The FIA instructed to discourage those people travelling from these nine districts. FIA also issued an advisory note that people travelling on Umrah visas must have religious knowledge and that, they have complete travelling documents including return-ticket, and hotel booking (cross-checked by FIA). Moreover, doubtful passengers must be interviewed about their travelling purposes and have financial support documents.