GUJRAT, Pakistan — The family, faces torn with grief, huddled around their phones, replaying voice messages sent from 3,000 miles away.

“I can’t talk too loudly or they’ll take my phone away,” said a panicked, hushed voice in one. “Don’t call me because it will make the ringer go off, they’ll hear it and I’ll get caught,” it cautioned in another. And finally, “Please tell the agent to send the money to Libya.”

The voice in the messages was that of Babar Shabir, a 19-year-old Pakistani. His relatives fear he is dead, among roughly 90 people who drowned this month when a boat smuggling migrants from Libya to Italy capsized. A majority, including a newborn, appear to have been from Pakistan.

The 16 bodies that have been found arrived in Pakistan earlier this month. Seven of the confirmed dead were, like Mr. Shabir, from tiny Gujrat, in northern Punjab Province, which has been rocked by the disaster.