Athlete who died in shipwreck off Italy ‘left Pakistan to help disabled son’

Part of the wreckage of the boat that washed ashore in southern Italy (Paolo Santalucia/AP)

A player in Pakistan’s national football team who died in a migrant shipwreck off Italy embarked on the voyage to find medical treatment for her disabled three-year-old son, according to her sister and a friend.

They said hospitals had told Shahida Raza that help overseas could be her only option.