Athlete dead in shipwreck left Pakistan to help disabled son

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani national soccer team player who died in a migrant shipwreck off Italy's southern coast embarked on the voyage to find medical treatment for her disabled 3-year-old son, her sister and a friend said Saturday. Hospitals had told her that help overseas could be her only option.

Shahida Raza, who also played for Pakistan's national field hockey team and was from Quetta in southwestern Baluchistan province, was one of at least 67 people who perished in the shipwreck. The overcrowded wooden boat they were traveling in broke apart in rough waters in the Ionian Sea off Calabria before dawn last Sunday.

The boat that set sail from the Turkish port of Izmir carried people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other countries who were seeking a better quality of life in Europe. According to survivor accounts, the vessel had at least 170 passengers before the tragedy happened.

Raza’s sister, Sadia, said Shahida’s attempts to emigrate had one motive: “She only wanted her three-year-old disabled son to move, laugh and cry like other children,” Sadia told The Associated Press. “Shahida’s sole dream was the treatment of her disabled child. She risked her own life after hospitals in Pakistan told her that overseas medical aid could be the only option.”