Islamabad, Pakistan – As Hassan Ali fell into the icy waters of the Mediterranean, he thought of his two children – their smiles, their hugs and his hopes for their future.
Then he remembered the others from his small village in Pakistan’s Punjab province who had dreamed of reaching Europe, and wondered if they, too, had spent their last moments in the pitch-black sea, thinking about their homeland and the people had that they had left behind.
“I had heard from so many others,” Hassan says on a borrowed phone from Malakasa, a refugee camp near Athens. Since he couldn’t swim, he was sure he would drown, he says.
Then he felt the rope – thrown from a merchant ship. “I’ve held on to it my whole life,” he says.
Hassan was the first person pulled aboard near the Greek island of Crete in the early hours of December 14th. Many more would follow during the two-day rescue operation, which involved nine ships, including the Greek Coast Guard and Merchant Navy vessels and helicopters.
But not everyone made it.
Greek authorities confirmed at least five deaths and more than 200 survivors after four separate coast guard rescue operations over the weekend. However, the total number of missing people remains unclear.
Three boats carrying migrants capsized between December 14 and 15 near the island of Gavdos, further south of Crete, and another boat capsized near the Peloponnese peninsula.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the bodies of five Pakistani nationals had been recovered and at least 47 Pakistanis had been rescued. According to the Pakistani embassy in Athens, at least 35 Pakistani nationals remain missing.
“Living with dignity”
Hassan’s journey had begun about three and a half months earlier, when the 23-year-old left his wife and two young sons in their village near the large industrial city of Gujrat.
The third of five siblings, he worked on construction sites as a steel fitter, earning 42,000 rupees ($150) a month working 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
But no matter how hard or how long he worked, he struggled to stay afloat as prices continued to rise.
“My electricity bill would be anywhere between 15,000 ($54) and 18,000 rupees ($64) (per month),” he explains. “And groceries would cost almost the same for my family, including my parents and two younger siblings.”
To make ends meet, Hassan often had to take out small loans at the end of the month and was always worried about what would happen if there was an emergency, such as an illness in the family.
“In Pakistan it is impossible to live with dignity on such an income,” he says.
It drove him to desperate measures. “Nobody willingly risks their life like that,” he explains.
Hassan initially spoke to his wife, mother and older brother and suggested he follow others in their village and try to reach Europe. His family agreed and decided to sell a small plot of land along with Hassan’s mother’s jewelry to finance the trip.
They raised nearly two million rupees ($7,100) to pay an “agent” who promised safe passage to Europe. The family had heard of people who left the country but never made it, but also of people who had reached Italy safely within days of leaving Pakistan. Hassan felt a mixture of trepidation and excitement.
Just a few weeks later, he said goodbye to his family and boarded a flight from Sialkot to Saudi Arabia. He spent two days there before flying to Dubai. From Dubai he flew to Egypt and from there his last flight to Benghazi in Libya.
“Recklessly beaten”
In Libya, Hassan was told he would be put on a boat that would take him to Italy. Instead, he was taken to a warehouse where more than 100 men were locked in a 20-by-20-foot space. Most of the men came from Pakistan. Many had been there for months.
The smugglers took Hassan’s phone, passport and backpack with some clothes in it, as well as the 50,000 rupees ($180) he was carrying.
Hassan says guards from Libya and Sudan constantly watched them and warned them not to make noise.
“We were given a piece of bread every day,” he explains, adding: “The guards allowed us a five-minute toilet break a day.”
He describes how anyone who complained about the lack of food or asked to use the toilet or shower was beaten with steel bars and PVC pipes.
“We could just look at each other or whisper a little to each other. Anyone who made a bit of noise was beaten mercilessly by the guards,” he says.
Sometimes the men begged to be sent home. But that too would be met with violence.
Then, in early December, the guards told the men that because of the bad weather they would be sent to Greece instead of Italy. They had 30 minutes to prepare to leave the room where they had been held for months. Their phones and passports were returned to them.
“Everyone started praying”
Hassan, who had never seen the sea before, was very afraid. “I begged to be sent back to Pakistan but they told us: ‘There is no going back’. “Either move forward or die,” he says.
More than 80 men were crammed aboard a rickety wooden boat designed to carry no more than 40 passengers, Hassan explains.
The sea was treacherous. Hassan describes how “stormy winds and huge waves” left the men “soaked and frightened.”
“The engines broke down and everyone started praying,” he says, adding that they were sure they were going to die.
Then, after 40 hours at sea, the boat capsized and Hassan and the others fell into the Mediterranean.
“When I fell into the water, I held my breath,” he recalls, describing how he tried to stay calm.
“When I came up, I was miraculously able to grab the rope that the ship had thrown to save us.”
As he was pulled onto the deck, Hassan said he collapsed. He believes it is a miracle that he survived.
“Not worth the risk”
Unfortunately, Hassan’s experience is not unusual.
Gujrat, along with neighboring cities in Pakistan such as Sialkot, Jhelum and Mandi Bahauddin, is a hub for people trying to reach Europe. With land routes increasingly closed, many are now turning to the dangerous sea route via Libya.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 190,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe this year, 94 percent of whom – more than 180,000 – taking the precarious sea route.
UNHCR figures also show that almost 3,000 Pakistanis have reached European shores this year, most of them in Italy and Greece. Last year the corresponding number was just over 8,000, which corresponds to a decline of at least 62 percent.
In one of the deadliest shipping accidents in the Mediterranean, more than 700 people died, including nearly 300 Pakistanis, when the aging fishing trawler Adriana capsized near the Greek island of Pylos June 2023.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2023 was the deadliest year in the Mediterranean since 2016, with more than 3,100 drowning deaths.
Now Hassan is in the Malakasa camp with survivors of his shipwreck and others, including some of those who survived the Adriana disaster.
He’s cautiously confident he can start working at the camp so he can send money home to his family, whom he speaks to once a day when he can borrow a phone.
He has a message for anyone thinking about embarking on the same journey.
“After what we’ve been through, I just beg people to never go down that path,” he says. “It’s not worth the risk.”
