About 90 Migrants Feared Dead After Boat Capsizes Near Libya

GENEVA — The United Nations is investigating a sudden increase in Pakistani migrants trying to make the perilous sea crossing to Europe, its migration agency said Friday, after a smuggler’s boat foundered off the coast of Libya, leaving 90 people feared drowned.

Many of the victims appeared to have been from Pakistan, according to information provided by three survivors that had not been verified, said Olivia Headon, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, who added that eight of the 10 bodies from the capsized craft that had washed up on the Libyan coast were Pakistani.

Mohammad Faisal, a spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign office, said in a post on Twitter that Pakistan’s Embassy in Libya was investigating but that 11 Pakistanis were believed to have drowned, according to initial reports.

The boat appeared to have become unbalanced in relatively calm waters after leaving Zuwarah, in western Libya, a popular departure point for migrants across the Mediterranean.

Most migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, usually Italy, are from sub-Saharan West African countries. More than 3,100 Pakistanis made the sea crossing from North Africa to Italy in 2017, out of a total of over 119,000, making them the 13th-largest group by nationality, Headon said, speaking by telephone from Tunis, Tunisia, with reporters in Geneva.

That proportion changed dramatically last month, when 248 Pakistanis reached Italy via the same route, from a total of about 4,000 people, making them the third-largest group by nationality. A year ago, in January 2017, just nine Pakistanis made the crossing.

The United Nations is trying to determine what has precipitated the surge in Pakistanis making the journey through Libya. Some migrants may have diverted to Libya after more traditional routes through Turkey and Greece were closed off or became more difficult to cross in winter, said Flavio Di Giacomo, a U.N. migration official in Rome.

Some of the Pakistani migrants who crossed to Italy in January had been expelled from refugee camps in Greece, where they were sent back to Turkey before finding their way to Libya via Sudan, he said.

But Di Giacomo also raised the possibility that the new wave of Pakistani migrants was drawn from a long-standing population of Pakistani migrant laborers inside Libya, which has been a destination for Pakistani workers since the time of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who was ousted during the Arab Spring in 2011.

The deteriorating conditions in Libya could have compelled the Pakistanis to abandon the country and make the sea crossing, Di Giacomo said. “They find themselves stuck in a horrible situation, vulnerable to human rights violations and the slave market. So they may have no choice but to seek a crossing to Europe.

“We have to investigate whether they have been living in Libya for years or coming more recently through Turkey and Sudan,” he said.

Leonard Doyle, a spokesman for the migration agency, said another possible reason the growing number of Pakistanis, as well as Bangladeshis, making such journeys could be the increased use of social media to better connect with people willing to attempt the trip.

There was no immediate reaction from the Pakistani government Friday.

Pakistan has previously said it is taking measures to reduce people-smuggling and illegal migration. Its embassy in Athens wrote to officials in Islamabad in January, according to local news outlets, appealing for additional help to curb migration.

Pakistanis have been traveling to Europe illegally for decades. Traditionally, the bulk of them come from Punjab, the country’s most populous province. From there, the journey has usually involved going first to the southwestern province of Baluchistan and then, illegally, into Iran and onward toward Europe. At least 246 migrants died trying to cross to Italy in January, the United Nations says, so the disaster Friday means that the number of people killed while trying to reach Europe this year will almost certainly surpass 300.

At least 35 people are believed to have died in another episode Sunday, when a dinghy crowded with more than 130 migrants sank within hours of leaving Zuwarah.

The chaotic conditions in Libya, which has been devastated by years of war, have made it a hub for migrants and the traffickers smuggling them to Europe.

Europe has been wrestling with the issue for years as people flee war and economic hardship. The number of people making the crossing dropped by one-third in 2017 after the European Union, particularly Italy, struck a contentious deal with Libya to try to stop the flow of migrants.

The Libyan route is the biggest migrant corridor into Europe, accounting for the majority of the 6,624 migrants that arrived in Europe in January, the United Nations said.