By Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s foreign office said on Monday that four Pakistani citizens were missing and 16 had survived after a boat carrying migrants to Europe crashed on rocks near the southern Italian coast, killing dozens.
At least 62 people were killed in Sunday’s disaster, according to Italian authorities and rescuers. Eighty people had survived, but more were believed missing based on survivors’ estimates of up to 200 people being on board.
Pakistan’s foreign office said its diplomats in Italy had met with 16 Pakistani survivors who said 20 Pakistanis in total were on the ship and four remained missing.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had said in a tweet on Monday morning that reports suggested more than two dozen Pakistanis had drowned and that he had asked the foreign office to make checks.
Rescuers and U.N. agencies said many Afghans had also been travelling on the wooden sailboat, which had come from Turkey.
Afghanistan’s foreign office and refugee ministry spokespeople did not respond to request for comment.
The U.N. refugee agency said that last year people travelling from Turkey made up about 15% of arrivals to Italy by sea and that nearly half of those using the route were from Afghanistan.
Turkey is part of one of the most-used routes for human smugglers to bring migrants into Europe, who at times travel by road, walk for miles and endure being locked in ship containers for days.
Italy is one of the main landing points for migrants trying to enter Europe by sea, with many seeking to travel on to northern European nations.
The United Nations Missing Migrants Project has registered more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014. More than 220 have died or disappeared this year, it estimates.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Bill Berkrot)
