Hopes fade for dozens of Pakistani migrants missing after last week’s Greece shipwreck

Hopes are fading for the recovery of dozens of Pakistanis who drowned after a boat sank off Greece’s southern island of Gavdos, said Pakistan's Ambassador to Greece Aamer Aftab Qureshi on Tuesday.

The vessel, which reportedly sank due to overcrowding, was carrying about 80 Pakistani migrants, including children he said at a press conference.

The migrants were traveling on five boats via an illegal route from Libya, the ambassador added.

The Pakistani Embassy will repatriate the bodies recovered on Monday for burial, Qureshi said.

So far, Greek authorities have identified five Pakistani nationals who died in the crash, but the ambassador claimed that they have only been able to confirm one person as Pakistani after his passport was recovered from his pocket.

"We have asked the Greek authorities to provide us with fingerprints of the bodies so that we can check it with our NADRA database," he said, referring to the national identification record.

Rescue operations, which began Friday, are ongoing, but hopes of finding survivors have diminished.

39 survivors

So far 39 men - most of them from Pakistan - have been rescued by cargo vessels sailing in the area. They have been transferred to the island of Crete, the Greek coastguard said.

Shipwrecks have increased in recent months, underscoring the dangers of such journeys. According to initial information, coastguard officials believe the boats left together from Libya.

Greece was a favored gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in 2015-2016, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, mostly via inflatable dinghies.

Incidents with migrant boats and shipwrecks off Crete and its tiny neighbor Gavdos, which are relatively isolated in the central Mediterranean, have increased over the past year.

In 2023, hundreds of migrants drowned when an overcrowded vessel capsized and sank in international waters off the southwestern Greek coastal town of Pylos. It was one of the deadliest boat disasters ever in the Mediterranean Sea.