Disaster after disaster People are dying at sea as they try to flee from climate havoc

Before the Adriana, an overcrowded B trawler, left Libya on 9 June, Sajjad Yousef spoke to his father. His family had begged him not to make the treacherous journey from Pakistan to Europe.

- Fatima Bhutto

But Yousef wouldn't listen. He wanted to leave the desolation of life in Pakistan far behind. He knew the journey would be rough. His family had borrowed the millions of rupees to buy him space on that trawler, and Yousef was ready to take his chance.

Most of the 750 people on board the trawler were Pakistani. They were migrants, fleeing poverty and lack of opportunity but also the ravages of the climate emergency, which is felt acutely in Pakistan. Those who risked their lives on the Mediterranean were escaping floods, droughts, glacial melt, crop damage and locust plagues, all of which Pakistan has suffered in recent years. It is a cruel fate to endure disaster after disaster; they were once described as "biblical" but have since become mundane, everyday occurrences.

The Pakistanis' fatal journey was shared with others abandoned by the world: Afghans, Syrians and Palestinians. The Adriana stood stationary for 15 hours, waiting to be saved, yet no one came. Of the 750 people on board, about 100 are thought to have survived. No women and children are yet listed among the survivors.