Addressing the National Assembly, Rana Sanaullah said that Pakistanis were half of the total 700 people on the ship. He added that the ship only had a capacity of 400 people. He also said that never had so many people perished in a single incident of this sort.

Sanaullah also confirmed 281 families whose relatives were aboard the ill-fated ship had been contacted and 193 DNA samples had been collected.

He also said that 12 out of the 104 survivors of the ship had been identified as Pakistani citizens.

The interior minister added that a grade 22 officer was supervising the investigation into the incident and that the government was determined to take strict action against those involved in the incident. He also added that no one had ever been punished in such a case in Pakistan before.

Initial estimates had said that up to 400 Pakistanis could have been on board the ship.

Details have slowly come to the fore about the scale of the tragedy. Dozens of young men from Azad Kashmir and Punjab were said to be aboard the boat, including a 14-year-old boy from Gujrat.

The incident has also led to dozens of arrests of alleged human traffickers from across the country. Multiple families reported that the agents had been paid a fortune, often by selling people’s own houses.