The Pakistan national soccer team player who died in a migrant boat capsize off the southern coast of Italy embarked on the journey to find medical treatment for her disabled 3-year-old son, her 3-year-old son said Saturday. sister and a friend. Hospitals in her country had told her that help abroad might be her only option.
Shahida Raza, who also played for the Pakistan national field hockey team and was born in Quetta, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, was one of dozens of people who perished in the shipwreck. The overcrowded wooden boat they were traveling on broke in rough waters in the Ionian Sea off Calabria before dawn last Sunday.
It had set sail from the Turkish port of Izmir and was carrying people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other countries seeking a better quality of life in Europe. According to the accounts of the survivors, the boat was carrying 170 or more passengers before the tragedy occurred.
Raza's sister, Sadia, explained that Shahida's attempts to emigrate were motivated: "She just wanted her disabled three-year-old son to move and laugh and cry like other children," she told The Associated Press. "Shahida's only dream was the treatment of her disabled son. She risked her own life after hospitals in Pakistan told her that medical help abroad might be her only option."
The boy, Hassan, was not on the ship and stayed in Pakistan. He suffered brain damage as a baby and is paralyzed on one side of his body, from head to toe. It was not clear how Shahida intended to help him by traveling abroad and leaving him behind.
"She was a brave woman, as strong as a man," Sadia has said. "My sister had her son treated at the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi. They told her that if they took him abroad, she could possibly get good treatment." The Aga Khan authorities have not commented on the case. Sadia said that Shahida also approached the Quetta Combined Military Hospital, that she also said that she could not do anything for her son.
"What a mother does for her children, no one else can do. Shahida always wanted to handle things on her own," she said. "We are proud of our sister." Pakistanis have paid tribute to Shahida across the country and in her town.
Pictures of her wearing the country's national colors and sporting accolades have appeared on TV screens and social media, though most people have known her after her death as women's sports are not widely televised in Pakistan. Local media also quoted her family as saying that she had previously spoken about her lack of recognition for her achievements.
Pakistani President Arif Alvi said on Friday that he had been "deeply shocked" by the Raza tragedy, as the country had failed to provide medical facilities for his son. The president, speaking at an international conference on cerebral palsy, said professional training of health experts and an inclusive approach to society were vital to accommodating people with disabilities.
Shahida's friend, Sumiya Mushtaq, has recounted that the 29-year-old athlete often expressed concern about her son's health. "The impossibility of being cured of the disease in local hospitals forced her to look for a better future for her son abroad," she said. Her family in Pakistan was still waiting this Saturday for the repatriation of her body.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
