In missing submersible and migrant disaster, a tale of two Pakistans
Analysis by Ishaan Tharoor, Columnist
June 21, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. EDT
The two maritime tragedies that gripped attention in recent days could barely be more different.
Last Wednesday, a fishing trawler carrying more than 700 migrants primarily from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan went down off the coast of Greece, in one of the worst such disasters in more than a decade.
Though the death toll is officially at 81, Greek authorities have only counted 104 survivors. Their testimony suggests all the women and children aboard perished.
By some estimates, more than 300 Pakistani nationals on the boat died, with one account alleging many were forced to stay below deck in the hold as the ship capsized and sank.
Shocking as it is, this disaster in the Mediterranean is all too familiar to a global public largely numb to the plight of those making the perilous crossing.
(1) A search is underway after a submersible used to take tourists to the Titanic wreckage went missing off the coast of southeastern Canada on June 18. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post, Photo: AFP Photo/OceanGate Expeditions/The Washington Post)
The migrants fell victim to a familiar chain of misfortunes: They were exploited by people-smuggling networks that stretched from their countries of origin to the coast of Libya.
With the threat of violence, they were forced onto an overcrowded, unseaworthy, ill-equipped boat. The ship that took them to their deaths was stranded for days on its intended journey to Italy without help, despite apparent distress calls made by the migrants. And they endured this all in a desperate attempt to find asylum on a continent whose governments have failed to come up with a collective plan on migration and where many locals would rather push them back into the sea.
Far away in the North Atlantic, a cinematic ordeal is playing out that has news media and the global public riveted. Somewhere near the famous wreck of the Titanic, a deep-sea submersible is missing. At the time of writing, the search for the 21-foot craft, known as the Titan, was entering its fourth day after it lost contact with Canadian research vessel Polar Prince on Sunday morning. The U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Air Force had scrambled to locate the submersible over a vast 10,000-square mile search zone in the ocean, which reaches 13,000 feet deep in some areas. U.S. officials feared that the five passengers aboard, if still alive, had not much more than a day of oxygen left.
The Titan was carrying out a dive organized by OceanGate Expeditions, a private research and tourism company that has conducted trips to the Titanic wreck site. Its passengers reportedly pay $250,000 a head to go on the journey.
Though the names of those on board had not been released by authorities, reporting confirmed that
(1) British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding,
(2) French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and
(3) OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush were inside the Titan. So too were
(4) Shahzada Dawood, heir to one of Pakistan’s biggest private fortunes, and his teenage son Suleman.
“[They] had embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean,” the Dawood family said in a statement. “As of now, contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available.”
On social media, some Pakistanis pointed to the grim spectacle of compatriots from opposite ends of a great socioeconomic divide disappearing in the watery depths at the same time. Pakistan is in the middle of a devastating economic crisis, with the rate of inflation at a 50-year high, food shortages, energy blackouts and mounting unemployment. The conditions have compelled numerous people, especially among the poor, to seek a better life abroad.
“The desperate situation has led to the mushrooming growth of people smugglers in Pakistan,” wrote Zahid Shahab Ahmed, a senior research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization in Australia. “In exchange for large sums of money, they offer people transportation, fake documentation and other resources for a swift departure from the country.”
“It is bad enough that the spectacular failure of the government to fulfill its part of the social contract by providing economic security to its citizens drives desperate individuals — even the educated ones — to leave the country,” noted a Monday editorial in Dawn, a Pakistani daily, further lamenting that “an inept, uncaring government has made little effort to crack down on a vast network of human smugglers who fleece desperate individuals and put them on a path strewn with hazards.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared Monday a national day of mourning, while authorities in various parts of the country arrested people suspected of links to human-trafficking networks. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you, and we pray that the departed souls find eternal peace,” the chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, said, vowing to take on the people smugglers.
That may be cold comfort to many Pakistanis, who live in what by some measures is South Asia’s most unequal society, one long dominated by influential, quasi-feudal potentates. Sharif himself is a scion of a political dynasty that also has huge business interests.
The Dawoods belong to the same world. Shahzada Dawood is vice chairman of Engro Corp., a major conglomerate that is a subsidiary of family-owned Dawood Hercules, fronted by his father, Hussain Dawood. It’s a multibillion-dollar operation that sprawls over various sectors of Pakistan’s economy, including textiles, fertilizers, foods and energy. As a result, Engro has been the beneficiary of hefty government subsidies. Both Dawood and Sharif were identified in the 2016 Panama Papers leak among the dozens of Pakistani tycoons and politicos to possess secret offshore bank accounts.
Dawood frequented the World Economic Forum, touted his vision for a “sustainable future” and business models that help uplift “low-income communities.” The Dawoods are also engaged in philanthropic work in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Britain, where Shahzada Dawood and his immediate family are based as dual British-Pakistani citizens.
The hundreds of Pakistanis lost in the Mediterranean were chasing just a glimmer of that life. Speaking to the Associated Press, Zohaib Shamraiz, a Pakistani man living in Barcelona, described his last conversation with his uncle, Nadeem Muhamm, who was still missing. Shamraiz’s uncle had left behind three young children in Pakistan to make a better life for his impoverishedf amily.
“I spoke to him five minutes before he got on the boat,” Shamraiz told the AP. “I told him not to go. I was afraid. He said he had no choice.”
Link Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/21/titanic-submersible-greece-migrant-ship-pakistan/?itid=mr_world_5
Lihat Juga :
Data Presiden :1900 Mayat Korban TPPO per Tahun
(2) Raja Sakundar displays a picture of his nephew, who was missing after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Greece. (Nasir Mehmood/AP)
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