Mediterranean boat disaster: Pakistanis turn to social media for news of missing loved ones

ISTANBUL (AA): It has been more than a month since Shan Virk’s cousins Asadullah and Usama left their homes in Pakistan.

The two were among the hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers on a boat that sank off the coast of Greece on Wednesday, the latest in an unending series of human tragedies on the open seas.

With 78 deaths confirmed so far, it is already one of the deadliest such disasters this year, but the toll is certain to rise as hundreds remain missing.

The 104 people fortunate enough to live to tell the tale say there were some 700 people on the ill-fated trawler, many from Pakistan, Egypt and Syria.

The overcrowded vessel set off from Libya and was heading to Italy when it sank close to the deepest area of the Mediterranean Sea.

Thousands of miles away in Gujranwala, an industrial hub in Pakistan’s northeastern Punjab province, Virk is clinging to the hope that his cousins were somehow rescued.

Like many others, he has turned to social media for any clues about their whereabouts.

Pictures of Asadullah and Usama are among scores of photos and identification documents being posted on various Facebook groups of the Pakistani community in Greece, each with a desperate plea by a loved one.

“I can’t find my cousins. I know they were on the boat. Please help me,” a distraught Virk said in a phone call.

He said the two left for Libya over a month ago, hoping to find passage to Europe for a better life.

“The last time they called us was on June 9. They said they were going to board a ship immediately. It was all very sudden,” said Virk.

“We are very worried. No one is telling us if they were found.”

Haani Hassan, another Pakistani now based in Australia, is facing a similarly agonizing ordeal.

She has been scouring Facebook pages for any sign of Syed Yousuf Taqi, her husband’s uncle from Bhalwal, a small city in Punjab’s Sargodha district.

After hours of searching, she was yet to come across anything that could dispel the creeping fear of the worst.

She shared that an agent had planned Taqi’s travel from Pakistan.

“We have been trying so hard to get a hold of the agent. We’ve called dozens of times but there is no response,” she said.

‘Give them legal protection’

Pakistanis in Greece are also trying to help out in any way possible.

Javed Aslam Arain, a community leader based in Athens, has been coordinating with family members of the missing.

In a phone call, Arain told the media that he has received “hundreds of passport copies and pictures” of Pakistanis who might have been on the boat.

“We are trying to go through it all and find out anything we can,” he said.

Arain said several Pakistani men are among the people who have been rescued.

“But they are being kept in the camps (in Kalamata). They should be allowed to leave the camps and must be given legal protection,” he said.

A post on one of the Facebook groups was about a press conference that Arain held about the tragedy, where he called for action to hold people accountable for the disaster.

The Pakistani embassy in Greece, meanwhile, put out a statement saying its representatives have met 12 Pakistani survivors in Kalamata, followed by an advisory calling for family members to send DNA reports, identification documents and contact information on the embassy’s email address.