Category World News

In Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, chaotic demonstrations were sparked by flamboyant embassies and piles of burning tyres to denounce the international community’s “inaction” with the conflict raging in Goma, the main city in the country’s east.

On foot or motorcycles, hundreds of angry demonstrators responding on Tuesday to the “Paralyse the City” call of a youth collective gathered in the upscale district of Gombe in the north of Kinshasa and targeted the embassies of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, France, Belgium and the United States.

They claimed that Rwanda and Uganda were actively supporting the armed group M23, which entered Goma on Sunday after a lightning offensive in North Kivu province with the support of Rwandan troops.

On Tuesday, they had taken control of its airport after raging street battles.

The other nations were accused of diplomatic apathy by the demonstrators.

“Enough is enough, we’re going to destroy everything here. We’re going to finish with Rwanda today,” chanted one demonstrator in front of the Kinshasa-based Rwandan embassy.

Tires that had been set on fire nearby produced thick smoke that drew nearby.

The French embassy’s perimeter wall also caught fire. Graffiti on it read: “Betrayal over a long period of time … let’s end it now”.

After Israel permitted their passage in accordance with the ongoing ceasefire, columns of Palestinians traveling with what they might have brought with them headed for north Gaza.

This week, Israel allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to begin making their way back to their homes in the north. Despite the crowds’ dwindling by Tuesday, thousands of people traveling by car, truck, or motorcycle were all aware of the fact that they only had rubble to wait for them.

Saif al-Din Qazaat, who had returned to northern Gaza but had to sleep in a tent next to his house, said, “I’m happy to be back at my home.”

“I kept a fire burning all night near the kids to keep them warm … (They) slept peacefully despite the cold but we don’t have enough blankets”, said the 41-year-old.

Although Mona Abu Aathra has yet to fully understand the impact of the war on her home, she was able to travel from Gaza City to the center of the country.

Her hometown, Beit Hanoon, was among the areas hardest hit by a months-long Israeli military operation which continued right up to this month’s ceasefire.

“We returned to Gaza City with nothing, and there’s no drinking water. Most streets are still blocked by the rubble of destroyed homes”, said the 20-year-old.

Despite the devastation, Abu Aathra expressed relief at being reunited with her family.

“It’s the first night we’re together again, me, my mother and my father. We gathered in Gaza City last night with my three brothers.

Since Israel opened the door for Palestinians to return on Monday morning, more than 375, 000 have entered northern Gaza, according to the United Nations on Tuesday. More than a third of the a million people who fled the north in the late 2023 war’s first weeks were there.

A key goal is to increase the availability of essential goods. Although aid deliveries have increased since the ceasefire began, the need remains overwhelming.

In the first four days of the ceasefire, according to the World Food Programme, more food was distributed than it did throughout December.

Islamabad, Pakistan –&nbsp, Rehan Aslam’s family ran a transport and car rental business, and grocery stores. Rehan helped run those businesses.

But five months ago, the 34-year-old sold his car, a Toyota Hiace wagon, for 4.5 million rupees ($16, 000) to pay an agent who would help him leave behind his life in his village, Jora, in Gujrat district of Pakistan’s Punjab province, in search of a future in Europe.

He never made it.

Rehan, a father of two girls and a boy, was one of 86 passengers who boarded a boat in West Africa’s Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital, on January 2. They were aiming for the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa, which is under Spanish control.

The vessel was left at sea for more than 13 days before being finally rescued by Moroccan authorities, with only 36 people still on board. Rabia Kasuri, Pakistan’s acting ambassador to Morocco, confirmed that at least 65 Pakistanis were on board the boat: of them, 43 were dead, while 22 survived.

Rehan was one of the dead.

“He just wanted to get to Europe somehow. That was his dream, and he told us not to create any obstacles in his way”, Mian Ikram Aslam, Rehan’s elder brother, told Al Jazeera. He merely desired for his three children to have better opportunities outside of Pakistan.

The 22 survivors of the most recent boat accident off the coast of Morocco are set to return home, according to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday, but there is little hope for the families of those who died.

Instead, the tragedy has left in its wake a series of questions. How was the boat’s passengers killed? Why did they make the unlikely and novel route for irregular Pakistani migrants to Europe from West Africa?

And why did people like Rehan, who come from wealthy families, risk their lives in the first place to travel to Europe?

Tortured to death

Four other vessels sank in the central Mediterranean in December of last year, leading to this incident on the Western Mediterranean route. In those tragedies, 200 people were rescued, but nearly 50 were reported dead or missing, including at least 40 Pakistanis.

One of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean occurred in June 2023, when more than 700 people, including nearly 300 Pakistanis, died after the Adriana, an ageing fishing trawler, capsized near the Greek island of Pylos.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry first reported the boat’s “capsized” on January 16 in the disputed Western Sahara territory of Morocco, which the country’s foreign ministry controlled. But families of the victims claim their loved ones were “beaten” and “tortured” before being thrown overboard.

Press Release

Capsize boat incident off the Moroccan coast. twitter.com/0ZNvrjWf4m

Aslam, 49, claimed that locals had reported reports of pirates attacking them on another boat, stealing their belongings, and assaulting them with hammers before throwing some of their cargo into the water.

Some of the surviving boys from Dakhla shared how pirates tortured and thrown people overboard while repeatedly attacking their boat for a week.

Chaudhry Ahsan Gorsi, a businessman from Dhola village in Punjab province, shared a similar account.

Gorsi lost his nephews, Atif Shehzad and Sufyan Ali, who paid 3.5 million rupees ($12, 500) to agents to facilitate their journey. He was informed of the brutal circumstances surrounding their deaths.

“These boys sold their land to raise the money and left last August”, Gorsi told Al Jazeera. He said, “But I could never have imagined they would face such gruesome fate: they would be physically attacked, tortured, and thrown into the water.”

The Pakistani government sent an investigation team to Rabat to investigate the allegations following the boat’s rescue last week. However, their report has not yet been made public.

“We are still conducting our investigation and have interviewed the survivors about their experiences”, Rabia Kasuri, Pakistan’s acting ambassador to Morocco, told Al Jazeera from Rabat, where she has served for the past two years. Investigators, she said, were still&nbsp, “trying to figure out the details of what unfolded during the days when the boat was stranded in the sea”.

A new route

Despite being one of Pakistan’s most fertile regions, and the home of several industries manufacturing electronic goods such as refrigerators, fans, sports and surgical goods, Punjab’s districts of Gujrat, Sialkot, Jhelum, and Mandi Bahauddin have been hubs for people seeking to migrate to Europe for decades.

Since 2009, the border and coastguard agency of the European Union has started keeping records of migrants entering the European Union, with the agency claiming that nearly 150 000 illegal migrants from Pakistan have entered Europe via land and sea routes.

Most Pakistanis traveling by air to the United Arab Emirates, then taking flights to Egypt and Libya, before attempting a Mediterranean sea crossing.

Kasuri, the acting envoy, said the Western Mediterranean route is uncommon for Pakistanis seeking irregular migration. According to Pakistani officials, Frontex and the Pakistani government’s efforts to impose tighter restrictions on irregular immigration may have led to this choice of course.

Overall, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), nearly 200, 000 people crossed into Europe via various Mediterranean routes in 2024, while at least 2, 824 were declared dead or missing.

Although those figures are still significant, Frontex reported a 38 percent decrease in the number of illegal border crossings into the EU in 2024, which is the lowest level since 2021.

According to Frontex data, about 5, 000 Pakistanis entered Europe via irregular means using land or sea routes, compared to just over 10, 000 who made it to Europe in 2023.

According to Munir Masood Marath, a senior official of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, Pakistani authorities claim they have increased and improved their screening to combat human trafficking networks since the Adriana sinking in June 2023, which sparked national outcry. But smugglers, in response, have searched and found new routes.

As we continue to monitor the smuggling network, they also find various ways to entice people to use those routes, Marath told Al Jazeera in an interview.

Rehan took a flight to Dubai from Faisalabad in Punjab. Then to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then on to Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar, the agent took Rehan and others in their group by road to Nouakchott, up north along the Atlantic coast.

The agent, Aslam said, was known to the family. Rehan frequently had access to his family back home over the phone, avoiding allegations of abuse from the agent or his aides.

Rehan’s journey appeared to be better than what many undocumented migrants who made the journeys did, as Aslam already knew from his own experience.

Europe’s ‘ lifestyle ‘ lure

More than two decades ago, in 2003, Aslam, too, had tried a risky journey to Europe – via land, to Greece. Along with a group of 50 to 80 people from the Gujrat district, he made his way to Pakistan’s southwestern province Balochistan, from where smugglers helped him, and others cross the border and enter Iran.

“We kept walking on foot for months on end, and when we would slow down, they]smugglers] would threaten to kill us or sometimes beat us”, he recalled of his journey.

When the group eventually crossed the Turkiye border, Aslam gave up and made a decision to go back home after almost two months of walking and hiding.

I simply told them I couldn’t walk anymore. He said, “I begged them to let me go by showing them the blisters on my feet.” He was let go by them. “It’s a miracle I survived that ordeal”, Aslam added.

Since then, the family has built its businesses, and Aslam, one of five brothers, said they were financially secure. The brothers now run a successful car rental business with a “fleet of 10-15 vehicles”, he said, as well as grocery shops. Additionally, they have a small plot of agricultural land.

“Our family was well settled, and Rehan helped me with our business”, Aslam said. He then decided to travel to Europe without documents after repeatedly failing to obtain visas for Canada or the United Kingdom.

Marath, the FIA official, pointed out that while economic reasons play their part in compelling people to undertake such perilous journeys, there is also a social aspect. Families, even those that are financially stable, see their neighbours, friends, and relatives whose sons have made it to Europe flaunting their upward social mobility.

Aslam explained that the lure of wealth, better opportunities, and the “chance to live in a more equitable society” pushed people into taking life-threatening risks.

“There is such a rot in our society, people do not get justice for small things”, he said. “So often, when our vehicle is plying between cities, traffic police stop people seeking bribes randomly. For many, it is part and parcel of doing business here, but for some, like my brother, they had enough of it”.

Gorsi also recalled how his nephews used construction materials in Dubai to start their own businesses before making the decision to pursue their European dreams.

These boys wanted to travel to Europe, and they both did. They learn about some of the fellow villagers who managed to send their children to Europe and how that increased their social mobility. So, these two also wanted to try their luck”, he added.

Even with his own journey in 2003 and the passing of his nephew in January, Aslam was fatalistic almost as though he was reconciling the dangerous choices that led to Rehan’s death.