They would have never thought of being shot at and killed at point-blank range in their own country, Balochistan’s Buledia tehsil, precisely to say, when the group of 15 people, all perspective asylum seekers in some European destination, had left their hometowns back in central Punjab about 20 days ago.
Their families are grappling with grief, though not so unexpected one, after their bullet-riddled bodies, what a blood-wrenched cliché it is, of their would-be breadwinner were dispatched to them by the law-enforcement agencies.
Earlier, it was reported that the deceased people were working on a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project. No, they were just potential immigrants destined for Europe, via Iran, Turkey, and Greece.
Not surprisingly, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the government agency responsible for checking trafficking in human beings, sprang into action in Gujranwala division, after the first-page news story raised the question on their performance. Several people have been rounded up for their alleged role in luring the deceased into take up dangerous paths to the greener pastures. The FIA says one Sabir Gujjar had led the group of 15 people to Quetta for their onward journey to Iran. The chain of smuggling works from destination to destination. The bad Gujjar handed over the clients to another trafficker, who would have crossed the batch illegally into Iran. In the rugged terrain of Buledia area, they fell prey to the gun attack. Who attacked them? Baloch militants? RAW agent? Iranian border guards? Taliban and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi militants who are after the people going to Iran? The traffickers themselves, for they dispose of the people who default on payments or become a burden on them during the journey?
Karachi-based educationist Khushbakht Sohail spent one year studying the problems of Pakistani asylum seekers stranded in Greece. She met several Pakistani youths, pushed into refugee camps, living there for years hoping to secure a refugee status for European places, unknown to them. Every refugee is a sad story. Living in harsh conditions, fed on charities and leftover of hotels and local families, their every day is an ordeal and every night a nightmare.
Their craze for the greener pastures dies once they leave home and are at the mercy of traffickers. They are bundled into small suffocating containers; they are told to run miles and miles in rugged border areas; they have seen killed their group members by border security personnel and in some cases by the traffickers when some group members suffer an injury and are unable to walk or bear the future harsh conditions.
Whatsapp keeps them connected with their families back in Pakistan. They upload their pictures of miseries but often find no buyer back in families, who keep them pressing to bear up with the condition as once they land a refugee status, their all pains will be over.
That is not true.
Even a European passport does not end their sufferings. They lack the right skills to integrate with local communities. They pay a heavy price to keep their families back in home prosper and thrive.
Hundreds of refugees have died in open skies and open seas. Wars and conflicts have been aggravating the volume of illegal travelers.
Only serious efforts to forge peace across the world and economic equality can stem deaths on the routs of economic refugees.
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