Hundreds of Pakistani migrants freed after raid in Libya

On Monday (July 31), a group working with migrants in Libya told the news agency Associated Press (AP) that at least 385 Pakistani migrants had been freed from trafficking or smuggling warehouses following an overnight raid in an area known as al-Khueir, around eight kilometers south of the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk.

The group, Al-Abreen, stated on its Facebook page that the released migrants were then taken to a nearby police headquarters. According to a spokesperson with Al-Abreen, Esreiwa Salah, who spoke to AP, the Pakistani nationals had arrived in Libya with the intention of traveling to Europe. They then found themselves detained by smugglers who were demanding a ransom for their release and onward journey.

Al-Abreen posted pictures on Facebook, which they said were of the freed Pakistani migrants sitting outside a warehouse.

Economic crisis in Pakistan

In recent years, the economic crisis in Pakistan has seen an increase in the numbers of mostly young men seeking to leave their country in search of work in Europe. Many of them make their way via Libya.

Inflation now stands at nearly 40% in Pakistan and the Pakistani rupee is dropping in value. A survey carried out in November 2022 by Pakistan’s public sector think tank, the Pakistani Institute of Development Economics PIDE, found that majority of young people (15-24 year old males) wanted to leave the country to seek a better life.

Survey respondents told PIDE “things are so bad in Pakistan, I wish I could leave.” The desire to leave, found PIDE, was highest in some of Pakistan’s poorest provinces like Balochistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Sindh. People in the capital Islamabad and its surrounding areas had the lowest desire to leave.

The survey also found that those with no schooling had the least desire to leave the country (21.7%), perhaps because they could not see a way to get there. Those with secondary or high school education had a greater desire. 44.9% of those with secondary school education wanted to leave and 49.3% with higher education or more wanted to get out. Most people wanted to earn higher incomes or find better opportunities. Many also expressed a desire to “gain more respect” was the second most reported reason to leave (44%) according to the study’s authors.

Increase in those making their way via Egypt and Libya

In June, Pakistani nationals were among hundreds who died when a boat thought to be carrying around 700 migrants sank off the coast of Greece. Twelve Pakistanis were among the 104 rescued from that ship.

Those that died on that ship were following one of the newest and most popular routes to Europe, the Pakistani authorities told the BBC. Many now fly to Egypt or Libya via Dubai and then try and board a ship in Egypt or eastern Libya towards Italy or Greece. The trend is partly due to crackdowns on migrants making their way towards Europe via the overland route in Turkey and Iran, officials say.

According to Mohammed Alam Shinwari, the offical in charge of Pakistan’s investigation into what happened with the Greek shipwreck, told the BBC that in the first six months of 2023, nearly 13,000 people had left Pakistan on the Libya or Egypt route towards Europe. In the whole of 2022, he said that number was almost halved and stood at around 7,000. Of those 13,000 10,000 have not yet returned.

‘We don’t know whether they are still in Libya’

“We don’t know whether they are still in Libya or if they have gone to any of the European countries,” Shinwari said. Investigating these smuggling routes is difficult, Shinwari added, as in many cases the families don’t want to give details to the authorities. Also, many fly legally via Dubai or Egypt as they have valid visas at least to that point.

Shinwari said that many are paying betweeen 2.5 million to 3 million rupees (€7,916 – €9,504) for these routes to Europe. According to the official, the Pakistani police actually stopped 19,000 people from attempting to go abroad via similar routes as they realised that they were victims of smuggling gangs. They also received 20,000 Pakistanis who were deported back from various countries after arriving there without the correct papers.

Families of migrants who have already arrived in Libya told the BBC that they receive videos from their relatives almost daily begging for more money. The videos depict the men in windowless rooms, sometimes 100 or more people in one room. The families say they don’t know who is holding the men and they are scared to reveal their identities in case of reprisals.

One father of an 18-year-old in Libya told the BBC, “they only give them food once every two to three days. My son cries a lot, he is only 18 years old. He says what kind of trouble have we landed into, we gave the money and we are dying here.” The heat waves in places like north Africa have also not helped matters. The families say many of the videos show the men stripped to their underwear in the rooms to try and keep cool.

With AP