Sialkot, Pakistan  - Kashif Gujjar left Pakistan in May to trek to Europe, dreaming of adventure and opportunity for himself and hoping to provide a better life for his family back home.

Two months later, he knocked at his parents' door with empty pockets and walking on crutches.

Still hundreds of kilometres from Europe, the 19-year-old stepped on a landmine as a people-smuggler guided him and 14 others through mountain paths from Iran into Turkey, blowing up his left leg and shattering his dreams forever.

"I tried to change the economic condition of my family, and I did not succeed," Gujjar said at his home in Majra Kalan village in the Punjabi city of Sialkot.

"We have a small piece of land that produces only enough to keep us alive. My father never sent me to school because he could not afford it, and I wished to make some money so that my three brothers and two sisters could get some education."

"He sold the to pay the agent (human trafficker)," Gujjar said,

Staring at four pegs in the family courtyard where the family's buffaloes were once tied up, Gujjar recounted how his father had sold their prized animals to pay the human trafficker. "Now we don't have even milk to drink," Gujjar said.

Millions of Pakistanis have been migrating to the United States, Europe, Australia and the Gulf countries as resources shrink due to rural land fragmentation within large families and massive unemployment in urban areas.

Most reach their destinations through legal or at least semi-legal means, but toughened immigration policies in many nations have boosted the people-smuggling business.

Flying with fake documents costs a fortune these days, so many with meagre resources risk their lives to travel the most dangerous land or sea routes chosen by the traffickers, who operate across borders.

On their way to their dream lands, some migrants are killed or maimed, like Gujjar, by landmines. Others die at the hands of border guards or die of illness, deprivation or simple fatigue.

Those lucky enough to survive the dangers in passage may end up captured en route or at their destinations, only to rot in jails for years.

In April, 60 migrants, many of them Afghans, died of suffocation in a cargo container loaded on a truck that a smuggler parked in a terminal in Pakistan's south-western province of Balochistan. They were smuggled on the favourite land route to Europe, which runs from Balochistan's capital, Quetta, through Iran, Turkey and Greece.

This is the same route that Gujjar attempted.

When he was wounded by the landmine in north-western Iran, the trafficker robbed Gujjar of his 1,500 dollars and other belongings and left him along a main highway.

"I remained lying there for more than two hours. Dozens of cars and trucks passed by but no one would stop. Perhaps no one wanted to get in trouble," said Gujjar. "Then a police car stopped and took me to the hospital."

Rehmat Ullah, 26, had much less money than Gujjar, and the trafficker would only take him to a Gulf country, offering only the dangerous sea route.

Together with six young men from his village in Dera Ghazi Khan, a remote district of impoverished southern Punjab, and 19 from other parts of Pakistan, Ullah crossed into Nobandian in Iran's Sistan- Balochistan province.

For almost five days, the smugglers hid them in a jungle, with little food available. On the fifth night, they were put in a small boat to take them to Dubai through Oman on the Strait of Hormuz.

They were only a few hours into the voyage when the engine failed, leaving the boat adrift and helpless.

"In the first two days we ran out of food and water, and people started to drink sea water, which made them sick. They vomited again and again and died," Ullah said.

"There were shadows of death everywhere, and I was praying to God for forgiveness."

Seven of the Pakistani migrants and one Iranian sailor died before the group was rescued by Iranian fishermen after eight days. Four more Pakistanis died later at hospital.

Life is cheap along the sea route to the Gulf. People-smugglers have been known to dump migrants 10 kilometres off the Dubai coast, telling them to swim. Those who refuse are shot, and many drown. Only a few migrants from each boatload are lucky enough to reach the coast.

Critics say the Pakistani government has little incentive to crack down on ruthless human trafficking. As the number of immigrants grows, so do their remittances, which are a lifeline for Pakistan's ailing economy.

In the 12 months through June 30, around 4 million Pakistani expatriates - half of them in the Gulf region - sent home 7.81 billion dollars, about 4.8 per cent of Pakistan's gross domestic product.

Chaudhry Manzoor, who heads the anti-trafficking department at Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, said the government was acting "very seriously" against the traffickers.

"We have tightened the noose around the smugglers and traffickers, and more than 6,000 of them have been arrested in the last four years," he said.

But Ullah said no matter what the government does, human trafficking will continue because of a ready supply of people willing to pay - and risk their lives - for a chance at a better future.

"Everyone in this basti (village) knows my story," he said, "and still 11 more left for Dubai through the sea route a day ago." (dpa)