LAHORE: When Muhammad Nadeem left home in Punjab, he asked his mother to pray for his safe passage to Europe then slipped away before she could object.
Ali Hasnain showed off the new clothes he would wear as he prepared for the long journey west to a better life.
Both men departed from Gujrat and although they did not know each other, became fellow travellers on the human trafficking trail, escaping the country’s rapidly deteriorating econ-omy. They died on the continent’s doorstep last month, relatives say, after boarding a boat in Libya and floundering in Mediterranean waters — the latest lives dashed on the world’s deadliest migrant route.
“It was like heaven had fallen when we first heard the news,” said Nadeem’s mother Kausar Bibi, as his wife keened in another room.
“I cannot bear this pain,” she told AFP in their family home, a basic concrete husk.
Pakistan is in economic freefall. A dire downturn — caused by decades of mismanagement and political instability — has drained dollar reserves, spurred runaway inflation and caused widespread factory closures.
The desperate situation is creating an incentive for Pakistanis to take perilous, illegal routes to Europe.
Nadeem, 40, was making only Rs500 to Rs1,000 ($1.80 to $3.60) a day in a furniture shop to support his wife and three boys when he left for Italy via Dubai, Egypt and Libya a few weeks ago.
“I was happy he was going for his children, that it would brighten their future,” said his 20-year-old brother, Muhammad Usman.
After coordinating the Rs2.2 million ($8,000) loan to pay the agent, Nadeem told a friend he anticipated a smooth passage.
“The sea is calm and there is no problem. I am in the game,” he said, using a euphemism adopted for the illegal odysseys.
The Foreign Office confirmed his death nearly two weeks later.
Hasnain’s family, meanwhile, learned of the 22-year-old’s death from an image of their dead son before it was officially reported.
“We also believed in sending him,” said his grandfather, 72-year-old Muhammad Inayat, after taming wails of grief.
“It’s becoming hard to survive here.” –Agencies
