Italy Shipwreck Kills Soccer Participant from Pakistan

Shahida Raza performed on Pakistan’s nationwide soccer and area hockey groups, however her athletic prowess didn’t make her wealthy or permit her to migrate to Europe legally.

That helps clarify why Ms. Raza, a mom of 1, was touring to Italy from Turkey final month on a ship with different financial migrants from Central Asia. Ms. Raza, 29, was certainly one of at the very least 63 individuals who died when tough seas dashed the boat in opposition to rocks a couple of hundred yards from the Italian shore — agonizingly near the land the place she had hoped to start out a brand new life.

Ms. Raza had left her 3-year outdated son, who’s partly paralyzed, along with her ex-husband in Pakistan earlier than beginning her harmful journey. However her household and associates say her plan was to finally settle the boy in Italy, the place she hoped he would obtain higher medical therapy.

“She was deeply involved about his well being and wished him to have a traditional life,” Saba Khanum, certainly one of her longtime soccer and area hockey teammates, mentioned in an interview.

Ms. Raza was certainly one of at the very least two Pakistani nationals who died within the Feb. 26 shipwreck off Italy’s Calabrian coast. Eighty individuals survived, together with 17 of her compatriots. Pakistan’s Overseas Ministry referred to as the crash an instance of “unscrupulous people” benefiting from financial migrants.

This week, Pakistani journalists descended on Ms. Raza’s household house in Quetta, the capital of Bal‌uchistan, an unlimited, arid province within the nation’s southwest that borders Iran and Afghanistan. They discovered her room adorned with sporting medals and the green coat she had worn as a member of the nationwide area hockey crew.

Quetta is house to many individuals from the Hazara ethnic minority, a predominately Shiite group that has been focused by Sunni extremists in each Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some Pakistanis noticed Ms. Raza’s demise as emblematic of the hardships that the Hazara face within the area and the pressures they really feel to to migrate.

Others in Pakistan, a rustic the place skilled male cricket gamers are lavished with consideration and cash, lamented that Ms. Raza’s athletic success had not shielded her from tragedy.

“I want this nation would acknowledge and respect its athletes, its individuals!” Hajra Khan, a former captain of the ladies’s soccer crew, wrote on Twitter. “Relaxation in everlasting peace, sister.”

Ms. Raza had performed on area hockey groups representing Quetta, the capital of her house province, and several other authorities companies, in line with Saadia Raza, her sister. She additionally represented her nation on many events, touring overseas six occasions for area hockey and 4 for soccer.

Ms. Raza finally joined the Pakistani army’s area hockey crew, a job that got here with a military wage and enabled her to ship her son for therapy at a army hospital, Ms. Khanum mentioned. However the military crew lower her a number of years in the past as a result of she had refused to cease taking part in for different groups on the similar time.

The lack of the military wage left her financially weak and determined to search out new medical doctors for her son, her sister mentioned. He suffers from mind accidents and is paralyzed on his left aspect.

Across the center of final yr, Ms. Raza advised Ms. Khanum, her former teammate, that she was planning a visit to Italy as a result of she thought there could be higher take care of her son there and extra financial alternatives for herself.

The opposite migrants on the ill-fated boat journey from Turkey to Italy had been primarily from Afghanistan, but in addition from Iran, along with Pakistan, the authorities mentioned after the shipwreck.

Ms. Khanum mentioned that her former teammate had arrived in Turkey in early October. A number of members of the Hazara group in Ms. Raza’s hometown, the place she as soon as coached youth soccer, have settled in Australia. However Ms. Khanum mentioned that making the journey there had develop into dearer in recent times.

About an hour earlier than Ms. Raza was anticipated to achieve Italy, she despatched a number of voice messages to her household and gave the impression to be in good spirits.

“She was continually thanking Allah that she had made it to Europe,” her sister mentioned. “She thought now her financial worries could be over.”

Then the messages stopped abruptly and by no means resumed.

After the migrants’ boat washed ashore in items, Italian information shops confirmed a priest blessing the our bodies of the lifeless, hidden beneath white baggage. However Ms. Raza’s sister mentioned on Friday that the household was nonetheless ready to obtain her physique to offer her an Islamic burial.