By: Chloe Sun
11 human traffickers were arrested last Friday after a deadly shipwreck where more than 750 lives were lost. The flimsy blue boat that was transporting the people sank about 50 miles away from Greece, their goal destination (Usman 2023).
The boat that sank on Friday had around 400-750 people on board. These people were mostly from Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria. Of the people that were on board, only about 104 were recovered and saved, and only 82 bodies have been found. Human traffickers are thought to be responsible for the shipwreck. It is believed that they were seeking to make money off of the money the immigrants paid to ride the doomed ship.
Each person that boarded the ship was required to pay $8,000. As the people on the ship were mostly from poor countries, this amount of money was a hefty fine. The families and friends of the victims back in Pakistan and other countries are devasted at the loss of their loved ones (Loveluck, Labropoulou, Mahfouz, O’Grady, and Noack 2023).
To make things worse, the people had no choice but to board the boat after they saw that the traffickers escorting them were reportedly holding knives and guns. At least 30 of the people aboard the ship were children. As the ship sunk near Greece, Greece is now under extreme pressure to identify the traffickers and apprehend the people that committed the crime.
Many friends and families of the victims are currently arranging funerals without the bodies of their loved ones.
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