Vessel carrying 65 sinks off Libyan coast; Pakistani embassy seeks details of nationals

The Foreign Office on Monday said Pakistan’s embassy in Libya was seeking details of “Pakistani affectees” as a boat carrying around 65 passengers capsized near the Marsa Dela port.

The incident follows a boat capsizing incident last month near Morocco in which at least 13 Pakistanis died. Over 40 Pakistanis were reportedly murdered by African human traffickers on the boat with only 22 out of around 66 Pakistanis onboard surviving the tragedy.

In a statement today, the FO said: “Our Embassy in Tripoli has informed that a vessel carrying approximately 65 passengers capsized near the port of Marsa Dela, North West of Zawiya city, Libya.”

It added that the Pakistan Embassy in Tripoli had immediately dispatched a team to “Zawiya hospital to assist the local authorities in [the] identification of the deceased”.

“The embassy is also trying to ascertain further details of the Pakistani affectees,” the statement said.

It is unclear if the passengers onboard the vessel were migrants.

“The Crisis Management Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa) has been activated to monitor the situation,” the FO said, providing the following contact details for any query:

For any query related to this incident, the following numbers can be contacted:

Parep Tripoli

03052185882 (WhatsApp) +218 913870577 (Cell) +218 916425435 (WhatsApp)

Crisis Management Unit, Mofa, Islamabad

Phone No: 051-9207887 Email: cmu1@mofa.gov.pk

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