Islamabad, Pakistan – When Hassan Ali fell into the icy waters of the Mediterranean Sea, he thought of his two children – of their smiles, their hugs and his hopes for their future.
Then he remembered the others from his small village in Pakistan’s Punjab province who had dreamed of making it to Europe and wondered if they, too, had spent their last moments in the pitch-black sea, thinking of home and the people they had left behind.
“I’d heard about so many others,” says Hassan, speaking on a borrowed phone from Malakasa, a refugee camp near Athens. Unable to swim, he says he felt certain that he would drown.
Then, he felt the rope – thrown from a merchant navy ship. “I held onto it with my life,” he says.
Hassan was the first person pulled on board in the early hours of Saturday, December 14, near the Greek island of Crete. Many others would follow during the two-day rescue operation that involved nine vessels, including the Greek coastguard as well as merchant navy ships and helicopters.
But not everyone made it.
Greek authorities confirmed at least five deaths and more than 200 survivors, following four separate rescue operations by the coastguard over the weekend, though the total number of missing people remains unclear.
Three boats carrying migrants capsized between December 14 and 15, near the island of Gavdos, which is further south of Crete, and another boat capsized near the Peloponnese peninsula.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry confirmed that the bodies of five Pakistani nationals were recovered, while at least 47 Pakistanis were rescued. The Pakistani embassy in Athens said that at least 35 Pakistani nationals remain missing.
‘To live with dignity’
Hassan’s journey had started about three and a half months earlier when the 23-year-old left his wife and two toddler sons in their village near the major industrial city of Gujrat.
The third of five siblings, he worked on construction sites as a steel fixer, earning 42,000 rupees ($150) per month, if he worked 10 to 12 hour days, seven days per week.
But no matter how hard or long he worked, he struggled to stay afloat as prices kept rising.
“My electricity bill would be anywhere between 15,000 ($54) and 18,000 rupees ($64) [per month],” he explains. “And groceries would cost nearly the same for my family, including my parents and two younger siblings.”
Hassan often had to take small loans at the end of the month just to make ends meet and he always worried about what would happen if there was some kind of emergency, like an illness in the family.
“In Pakistan, it’s impossible to live with dignity on such earnings,” he says.
It drove him to take desperate measures. “Nobody willingly risks their life like this,” he explains.
Hassan first spoke to his wife, mother and older brother to suggest that he follow others in their village and attempt to reach Europe. His family agreed and decided to sell a small plot of land, along with Hassan’s mother’s jewellery, to help fund the journey.
They raised nearly two million rupees ($7,100) to pay an “agent” who promised safe passage to Europe. The family had heard of people who left but never made it, but also of those who had safely reached Italy within just a few days of leaving Pakistan. Hassan felt a mixture of trepidation and excitement.
Just a few weeks later, he said goodbye to his family and boarded a flight from Sialkot to Saudi Arabia. He spent two days there before flying to Dubai. From Dubai, he flew to Egypt and from there, he took his final flight to Benghazi in Libya.
‘Beaten ruthlessly’
In Libya, Hassan was told that he would be put on a boat that would take him to Italy, but instead, he was taken to a warehouse where more than 100 men were confined to a 6-metre x 6-metre (20-foot x 20-foot) room. Most of the men were from Pakistan. Many had been there for months.
The smugglers took Hassan’s phone, passport and backpack with a few items of clothing inside, and the 50,000 rupees ($180) he carried with him.
Hassan says guards from Libya and Sudan watched them at all times and warned them not to make any noise.
“We received a piece of bread daily,” he explains, adding: “The guards allowed us one five-minute bathroom break a day.”
He describes how anyone who complained about the lack of food or asked to use the toilet or shower was beaten with steel rods and PVC pipes.
“All we were able to do was to look at each other or whisper with each other a little. Anybody making a little bit of noise, the guards would pounce and just beat them ruthlessly,” he says.
Sometimes, the men would beg to be sent back home. But that, too, would be met with violence.
Then, at the beginning of December, the guards told the men that bad weather meant that instead of being sent to Italy, they would be heading for Greece. They were given 30 minutes to prepare to leave the room where they had been held for months. Their phones and passports were returned to them.
‘Everyone began praying’
Hassan, who had never seen the sea before, was terrified. “I begged to be sent back to Pakistan, but they told us, ‘There is no going back. Either go forward or die’,” he says.
More than 80 men were crammed on board a rickety wooden boat designed to carry no more than 40 passengers, Hassan explains.
The sea was treacherous. Hassan describes how “stormy winds and huge waves” left the men “soaked and terrified”.
“The engines broke down and everyone began praying,” he says, adding that they were certain they were going to die.
Then, after 40 hours at sea, the boat capsized and Hassan and the others plunged into the Mediterranean.
“As I fell into the water, I held my breath,” he recalls, describing how he tried to remain calm.
“When I came up, miraculously I was able to grab the rope that was thrown by the ship to save us.”
When he was pulled onto the deck, Hassan says he collapsed. He believes it is a miracle that he survived.
‘Not worth the risk’
Hassan’s experience is, sadly, not unusual.
Gujrat, along with neighbouring cities in Pakistan such as Sialkot, Jhelum and Mandi Bahauddin, is a hub for people trying to reach Europe. With land routes increasingly closed off, many now turn to the dangerous sea route via Libya.
According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 190,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe this year, of whom 94 percent – more than 180,000 – took the precarious sea route.
UNHCR figures also show that this year, nearly 3,000 Pakistanis have reached European shores, mostly arriving in Italy and Greece. The corresponding figure last year was just over 8,000, showing a decrease of at least 62 percent.
In one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, more than 700 people including close to 300 Pakistanis, died when the Adriana, an ageing fishing trawler, capsized near the Greek island of Pylos in June 2023.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2023 was the deadliest year in the Mediterranean since 2016, with more than 3,100 deaths by drowning.
Now Hassan is in the Malakasa camp with survivors from his shipwreck and others, including some of those who survived the Adriana disaster.
He is cautiously hopeful that he will be able to start doing some kind of work in the camp so that he can send money home to his family, who he speaks to once a day when he is able to borrow a phone.
He has a message for anyone contemplating embarking on the same journey.
“After what we have experienced, I only implore people to never, ever take this route,” he says. “It is not worth the risk.”
