The bodies of 28 Pakistanis have been recovered after a wooden sail boat carrying migrants from several countries crashed against the rocks off the southern Italian coast early on Sunday.
According to the Pakistani embassy in Rome, a total of 40 Pakistanis were on board the ill-fated boat. The fate of 12 more citizens is still unclear.
Talking about the tragic incident, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said that most of the Pakistan who died belonged to Gujrat and some of them were on their way to Italy from Libya.
The agency also said that strict action will be surely taken against the facilitators, ‘agents’ who send these people via illegal routes to foreign countries.
A total of 59 migrants lost their life in the crash. The survivors were mostly from Afghanistan, as well as a few from Pakistan and a couple from Somalia. One survivor was arrested on migrant trafficking charges, customs police said.
“According to survivors, 140 to 150 people were on board,” Manuela Curra, the provincial government official said. She added that 81 survivors— most of them from Afghanistan —had come ashore, including 22 who were now in the hospital.
