Shahida Raza performed on Pakistan’s nationwide soccer and subject hockey groups, however her athletic prowess didn’t make her wealthy or enable her to 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 no less than 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 begin a brand new life.
Ms. Raza had left her 3-year-old son, who’s partly paralyzed, together with her ex-husband in Pakistan earlier than beginning her harmful journey. However her household and buddies say her plan was to settle the boy finally 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 subject hockey teammates, stated in an interview.
Ms. Raza was certainly one of no less than two Pakistani residents 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 known as the crash an instance of “unscrupulous people” making the most of 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 subject hockey workforce.
Quetta is house to many individuals from the Hazara ethnic minority, a predominantly Shiite group that has been focused by Sunni extremists in each Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some Pakistanis noticed Ms. Raza’s loss of life 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 workforce, wrote on Twitter. “Relaxation in everlasting peace, sister.”
Ms. Raza had performed on subject hockey groups representing Quetta, the capital of her house province, and several other authorities companies, in response to Saadia Raza, her sister. She additionally represented her nation on many events, touring overseas six occasions for subject hockey and 4 for soccer.
Ms. Raza finally joined the Pakistani army’s subject hockey workforce, a job that got here with a military wage and enabled her to ship her son for therapy at a army hospital, Ms. Khanum stated. However the military workforce lower her a couple of years in the past as a result of she had refused to cease enjoying for different groups on the identical time.
The lack of the military wage left her financially susceptible and determined to search out new docs for her son, her sister stated. He suffers from mind accidents and is paralyzed on his left aspect.
Across the center of final yr, Ms. Raza informed 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 have been primarily from Afghanistan, but additionally from Iran, along with Pakistan, the authorities stated after the shipwreck.
Ms. Khanum stated 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 stated that making the journey there had turn into dearer lately.
About an hour earlier than Ms. Raza was anticipated to achieve Italy, she despatched a couple of voice messages to her household and gave the impression to be in good spirits.
“She was always thanking Allah that she had made it to Europe,” her sister stated. “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 retailers confirmed a priest blessing the our bodies of the lifeless, hidden below white baggage. However Ms. Raza’s sister stated on Friday that the household was nonetheless ready to obtain her physique to present her an Islamic burial.