Pakistanis making increasing illegal journey’s due to economic crisis.
Depreciating currency, deficit led govt to adopt drastic measures.
401 people caught crossing Pakistan’s borders Jan-April 2023.
Hameed Iqbal Bhatti had prospered over two decades working in Saudi Arabia, but after returning to Pakistan three years ago, he was getting desperate.
The economy had suffered in the pandemic and his restaurant business closed.
With work avenues drying up and sky-high inflation blowing a hole in his budget, the 47-year-old cobbled together $7,600 for a trafficker to smuggle him into Europe, where he hoped to rebuild the life he once had, his brother Muhammad Sarwar Bhatti, 53, told Reuters.
“He told me that he would start afresh for his children’s future and the life he wanted for them,” the elder Bhatti said at the family home in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK).
A boat that left Libya carrying the younger Bhatti and hundreds of others sank off Greece last week in one of the deadliest migrant disasters of recent years.
Suleman Asim, 18, friend of Muhammad Ali, 21, who along with others died when a migrant boat shipwrecked off the coast near Benghazi in Libya, looks at pictures of his friend on a mobile phone, at a tea stall in Bhojpur town in Gujrat district of Punjab province, Pakistan March 7, 2023. — Reuters
He was missing and presumed dead, according to his brother, highlighting the perils faced by people who seek to enter Europe illegally.
Pakistanis have been making these journeys in increasing numbers in recent months because of the country’s economic crisis, according to more than a dozen migrants and their relatives, experts and data reviewed by Reuters.
Cash-strapped Pakistan’s $350 billion economy is in a meltdown, with a record 38% inflation.
A rapidly depreciating currency and external deficit led the government to adopt drastic measures over the past year to avoid default.
But with that came a huge hit to growth and jobs. The industrial sector, Pakistan’s economic engine, provisionally contracted almost 3% in the current financial year — troubling for a nation of 230 million with more than 2 million new entrants to the labour force annually.
Official unemployment data have not been published in two years. Hafeez Pasha, a former finance minister and an economist renowned for his work on Pakistan’s labour force, put the jobless rate at a record “11-12%, conservatively”.
Pakistan’s information ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters about economic factors fuelling migration.
Pushed to the brink
The 102,000 detections of irregular migrants at the European Union’s external border between January and May was 12% higher than the previous year and the most since 2016, according to Frontex, the bloc’s border and coast guard agency.
Crossings of the central Mediterranean via Libya, mainly to Italy and Greece, nearly doubled, accounting for about half of the total. Currently, Pakistanis are the number 3 nationality registered in Italy coming from Libya, after Egyptians and Bangladeshis, a Frontex spokesperson told Reuters in an email.
Of the detections this year through May, 4,971 were from Pakistan, a record for the country on the central Mediterranean route in a single year, according to Frontex data that go back to 2009.
Dilawar Khan (C), father of Muhammad Ali, 21, who along with others died when a migrant boat shipwrecked off the coast near Benghazi in Libya, sits with people who came to attend a prayer after his son’s funeral, at his family home in Bhojpur town in Gujrat district of Punjab province, Pakistan March 7, 2023.
Pakistan on Monday observed a day of mourning after the latest boat disaster.
At least 209 Pakistanis were believed to be on board, according to official data based on information provided by relatives.
Even before last week’s sinking, numerous Pakistanis had perished in the Mediterranean this year.
Muhammad Nadeem, 38, was aboard a boat that sank off Libya in February, killing more than 70.
Nadeem, from the eastern city of Gujrat, had three children and also supported his younger sister and mother.
He worked as a salesman at a furniture store, but his wages were modest and rising inflation had made their situation precarious, according to his mother, Kosar Bibi.
“We used to make ends meet, he could feed his family. But it had become impossible”, she told Reuters in their cramped three-room home where seven people live.
Bibi said her son paid someone he knew to arrange the trip to Italy, via Libya.
“He said, ‘Mother, our conditions will improve’. He said he would send me to do Hajj, he would get his sister married,” Bibi recalled.
Most who make the journey are unskilled or labourers and it is difficult for them to obtain work visas, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told Reuters.
But by living frugally in Europe, they are able to save and send money home — a prospect made more attractive by the Pakistan rupee’s 35% depreciation against the euro and dollar in the past 18 months.
“The way the situation is here right now, people think that foreign currency is going up in value, so whatever they earn it will multiply when they send it back,” said Sarwar Warraich, an FIA official based in Gujrat.
Lure of work abroad
Nadeem only had to look around his local area to see what Europe could offer.
“He saw friends and people in his neighbourhood had gone. He saw that they were successful, and hoped god would make him successful too,” said Nadeem’s cousin, Muhammad Zubair.
A few kilometres from Nadeem’s home, Muhammad Nazim was building a multi-storey vacation home in Gujrat when Reuters visited in the spring. Nazim, 54, said he lived in the Italian city of Ferrara, running a construction business, but was visiting Pakistan.
“Our houses are built (in Italy) too, we stay there, but the reason for building them in Pakistan is that we come here with our children after a year or two to spend a few months and relax,” said Nazim.
“Here in Gujrat, at least one person from every household is abroad, either Europe or Arab countries.”
Nazim, who said he entered Europe illegally via Turkey in the 1990s and eventually obtained residency, said he understood why people wanted to leave Pakistan.
Muhammad Nawaz, 62, father of four, whose son Khuram Shahzad, 17, crossed borders while travelling to Greece via so-called “donkey method”, guards his herd of goats in Bhojpur town in Gujrat district of Punjab province, Pakistan March 2, 2023.
“What can a poor man do,” he said. “The conditions of the country are now like this.”
Also among the dead on Nadeem’s ill-fated vessel was Muhammad Ali, 21, from Bhojpur, in Gujrat district.
“Even the educated class are having lots of trouble getting jobs” in Pakistan, Ali’s cousin Anish Raza told Reuters at their family home. “A person’s desires make one desperate.”
Across the lane, Haji Ilyas, 70, was building a palatial home. Ilyas, who owns four vehicles, including an imported SUV and two tractors, said three of his sons had gone abroad illegally, two to Spain.
“Those who are getting money from abroad, they are able to survive,” Ilyas said, puffing on his hookah.
The FIA said it had clamped down on unauthorised crossings of Pakistan’s borders but noted that many who seek to enter Europe illegally depart with valid visas for Turkey or Libya before venturing onward.
Limited data the agency shared with Reuters showed that 401 people were caught crossing Pakistan’s borders illegally in the first four months of 2023, up about 50% from a year earlier, while 15,371 deportees were repatriated in the same period, mostly from Turkey and Greece.
‘Back to square one’
With foreign exchange reserves to cover less than a month’s imports, Pakistan risks running out of money. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme expires this month, and the government would need to get into a new programme within the calendar year or face likely default.
Pakistan is a top exporter of labour, and remittances have helped keep the country afloat.
Nearly 830,000 people registered as overseas workers last year, the highest since 2016, official data show.
But legal migration opportunities are limited, and many migrants make arrangements through agents who often present irregular migration as a quicker, cheaper, or the only way to reach Europe, according to the Migrant Resource Centre, an EU-funded organisation that provides information and counselling to migrants.
One who took this route was Israr Mirza, 29, who said he was desperate enough to risk the journey to the West after he was laid off last year from his job at a textile factory in Lahore.
People carry the coffin of Muhammad Ali, 21, who along with others died when a migrant boat shipwrecked off the coast near Benghazi in Libya, during his funeral at a graveyard in Bhojpur town in Gujrat district of Punjab province, Pakistan March 7, 2023.
“Local jobs when available didn’t pay me enough to support my wife, three kids and father, who has cancer,” he said.
College-educated Mirza took a loan, bought a plane ticket to Turkey and paid a smuggler who arranged his passage by land into Greece in September.
He made it, but was caught and sent back to Turkey, then detained and ultimately deported to Pakistan, where he recounted the ordeal to Reuters at Islamabad airport in March.
“I don’t know if I’m happy to have returned alive,” he said. “I am back to square one, with no income and now loans to pay.”
Pakistan marks the anniversary of the day the Pakistani Army defeated an enemy attack and won a major victory on September 6. On this day of defence, the families of the war martyrs from 1965 offered their opinions:
The soldiers’ actions in demolishing enemy tanks with explosives and their bravery in the dark were commended by Shaheed Sepoy Muhammad Haleem’s brother. He gave the 1965 martyrs his respects.
The significance of Defence Day is remembered for the martyrs, as stressed by Shaheed Sepoy Shahid Ahmed’s uncle. The brother of Shaheed Sepoy Aftab Hussain offered gratitude to everyone who has given their life in defence of the nation.
In addition to emphasising the value of encouraging rather than criticising the troops, Shaheed Sepoy Wazir Ahmed’s brother praised the soldiers for foiling the enemy’s schemes.
Javed Ahmed, Shaheed Lance Naik’s cousin, emphasised September 6th’s significance as a day of victory.
In addition to expressing support for the Pakistani Army today, the brother of Shaheed Havaldar Shafiq reiterated their dedication to remembering the dead of September 6, 1965.
In a recent statement, Pakistan’s Minister of Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb reaffirmed the country’s unwavering dedication to luring international investments by preserving an atmosphere that is commercially encouraging.
A group of international investors, led by Amin Mohammad Khowaja, the Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Pakistan, had visited him in Islamabad. He was speaking with them.
Muhammad Aurangzeb also provided further information regarding the ambitious structural reforms program of the government. This agenda aims to strengthen the general macroeconomic stability by widening the tax base, rightsizing the public sector, promoting privatization, and reforming the energy sector.
The Minister of Finance emphasized the great achievements that Pakistan has made in strengthening its macroeconomic indicators, such as the increase in exports by 14 percent, the decrease in inflation to 9.6 percent, which is the lowest level in 34 months, and an overall decrease in the current account deficit among Pakistan’s economic indicators.
It was also brought to his attention that Pakistan’s sovereign credit ratings had improved, which is indicative of a stable and encouraging economic future. According to him, the rigorous fiscal discipline, inflation management, and favorable balance of payments that the country has are the pillars upon which the country’s economic prosperity.
In addition to expressing confidence regarding the potential for larger investment flows into Pakistan, the delegation praised the efforts that the government has made to establish an atmosphere that is conducive to business.
According to Information Minister Atta Ullah Tarar, journalists must possess sufficient skills in order to serve as ambassadors for the country, particularly in the digital realm, to foster unity among people. This is a pressing requirement at present.
During an event in Islamabad focused on journalist training, Atta Ullah Tarrar, the Minister responsible for combating misinformation, stated his official role.
The Information Minister emphasized the indispensability of technology for achieving prosperity, and in line with this, the Government has implemented Pakistan’s inaugural digital land registry system.
Tarar stated that we have the privilege of initiating Pakistan’s inaugural safe city project.
Regarding verification and authentication, the Information Minister lamented the lack of a method to validate information.
According to the Information Minister, terrorist organizations are utilizing social media platforms. Additionally, the minister highlighted that the country’s economy is delicate, and the dissemination of a single false news item might result in significant economic losses for the nation.