Foreign Office says Pakistan Embassy in Italy is vigorously following the case of Pakistanis aboard the vessel that capsized off the coast of Italy on Sunday.
In a tweet, the Foreign Office said a senior Embassy official has met 16 Pakistani survivors of the capsized vessel who were in good physical condition.
The survivors informed that there were twenty Pakistanis on the ship. The Embassy is in close contact with Italian authorities to verify status of the four missing Pakistanis.
The foreign ministry said that 16 Pakistanis were among those rescued, but four were reported missing after their overloaded boat sank early on Sunday in stormy seas off Italy’s southern Calabria region.
Italy's coastguard searched the sea and beaches for bodies following a shipwreck off Calabria, as authorities tried to identify the dead and the government's migrant policy came under scrutiny.
The boat was reported to have set sail from Izmir in Turkey last week. Three suspected human traffickers were arrested and police were searching for a fourth, media reports said Monday.
The overloaded wooden boat broke up and sank early Sunday in stormy seas off Italy's southern coast, with bodies, shoes and debris washing up along a long stretch of shoreline.
The death toll rose Monday to 62 people, a coast guard official told reporters — and that number looked likely to increase.
Local officials said the search was ongoing for around 20 people still believed missing, though survivors have given differing versions as to how many people were originally on the boat.
