The toll of the sunken Lebanese boat off Syria rose to one hundred. The boat set out from Tripoli and was carrying Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees, including children and the elderly.
The death toll from the sinking of a boat carrying migrants who set off from Lebanon, off the Syrian coast last Thursday, has risen to 100, with a new body recovered, according to the official Syrian media. The death toll from the sinking of this boat, which is among the highest in the eastern Mediterranean region, has risen since the first bodies were found last Thursday, while only 20 people out of 150 passengers survived.
“The number of victims of the Lebanese boat has reached 100 people so far, following a body was recovered from the sea in front of the bus in Baniyas,” said the director of Syrian ports, Brigadier General Samer Kobrly, in a statement to the official Syrian News Agency (SANA). SANA also reported that all the survivors have been discharged from the hospital.
The majority of the people on board the boat, which set off from the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, were Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees, including children and the elderly. “This is another painful tragedy,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a statement, calling on the international community to provide full assistance to “improve conditions for forcibly displaced people and host communities in the Middle East.” “Many are pushing them to the edge of the abyss,” he added in a joint statement with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and the International Organization for Migration.
And clandestine immigration is not a new phenomenon in Lebanon, which formed a springboard for refugees, especially Syrians and Palestinians, towards the European Union. However, its pace increased due to the economic collapse that has afflicted the country for nearly three years, and which prompted the Lebanese to risk their lives in search of new beginnings. Lebanon hosts more than a million Syrian refugees who fled the war in their country.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced that ten children died in the accident, according to initial reports.
“Years of political instability and economic crisis in Lebanon have pushed many children and families into poverty, affecting their health, well-being and education,” said Adele Khader, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“As is the case in many areas in the region, people in Lebanon live in dire conditions that affect everyone there, but are especially harsh for the most vulnerable, including refugees who have left their countries in the hope of a better opportunity for themselves and their children,” she said in a statement. “.
According to the United Nations, at least 38 vessels carrying more than 1,500 people left Lebanon or attempted to leave Lebanon illegally by sea between January and November 2021.
A.K./ (AFP)