Khuiratta: Mohammed Naeem Butt turned around after spending weeks in Libya attempting to travel illegally to Europe, abandoning a journey that has already claimed hundreds of Pakistani lives this summer.

He claims that his perilous quest for a better life came to an end last month when an overloaded fishing trawler sank off the coast of Greece while he was shovelling sand onto a truck surrounded by Pakistan's Kashmir Valley.

According to estimates, up to 350 Pakistanis—including 24 from Butt's hometown of Khuiratta in the verdant Kashmir Valley—were among the 600 people who perished in the water.

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With hindsight, I see that the risk I took was not worthwhile, Butt admitted.

Butt is one of several Khuiratta men who told AFP that the disaster led them to abandon their journey once they arrived in Libya.

He declared, "Quality time spent with your spouse and children, not how much money you have, defines life."

Agents who smuggle family fortunes to Europe, where remittances — which have become even more valuable since Pakistan's economy collapsed last year — can be wired home, have received tens of thousands of young men's trust.

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To raise the 2.2 million rupees (roughly $7,500) he needed to pay the human traffickers orchestrating the trips, Butt asked for assistance from friends and family and had his wife sell her priceless wedding jewellery.

Commercial flights to Dubai and Egypt, followed by an overland trip to Libya, where his ordeal really began, made up the first legs of his journey without incident.

He waited for the day they would be loaded onto a cargo ship to travel across the Mediterranean for two months in a makeshift shanty camp with 600 other migrants.

Instead, Butt claimed, they were crammed onto a rickety fishing boat and forced to drift in international waters for eight days before being fired upon and then rammed by a Libyan naval vessel.

He added that the only reason they were able to survive was because the navy ship abandoned them when a storm hit; however, it later came back to tow them back to port, where they were locked up.

A plate of macaroni or boiled rice would be shared by five people, according to Butt, who claimed that they were only given enough food to keep them alive.

"They were vicious individuals."

News of the migrant boat sinking off the coast of Greece reached his hometown while he was incarcerated, bringing sadness and distress.

Butt's wife Mehwish Matloob said, "I can't explain the pain and anguish I went through for a week."

The 31-year-old said, clutching a shawl, "I felt as though my entire world had crumbled before me."

Butt eventually managed to leave prison and make contact with his family to let them know he was still alive.

The Mediterranean Sea is the world's most dangerous migration route, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

There have been more missing migrants this year (1,728) than there were in 2022 (1,417 disappearances).

More than 175 young people from Khuiratta alone left for Europe illegally last year, according to Zafar Iqbal Ghazi of the Kashmir Human Rights Forum group. He predicts that the recent pause following the boat incident in Greece will only be momentary.

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The Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan reported that 69 smugglers had been detained since a crackdown began last month, but prosecutions will be challenging.

The difficulty is that the majority of these young people have valid visas for Dubai, which they use as a jumping-off point to travel to Libya, an FIA official told AFP while speaking on the condition of anonymity