Authorities reported that at least 77 migrants drowned after a boat that they were riding on and traveled from Lebanon, sank off Syria's coast in what is considered one of the deadliest of such shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been mired in a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the world's worst in modern times. It has also become a launchpad for illegal migration, with its own citizens joining Syrian and Palestinian refugees clamoring to leave their homeland.
Sunken Ship
The boat carried roughly 150 people, mostly Lebanese and Syrians, before going down off the Syrian city of Tartus on Friday. Syrian Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash reported that 77 people died in the incident, adding that 20 survivors were being treated for injuries, with being in critical condition.
Lebanon's caretaker transport minister Ali Hamie revealed that among the rescued, five were Lebanese. Tartus is the southernmost of Syria's main ports and is located roughly 50 kilometers north of the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, where the migrants had boarded, as per CBS News.
An official at Syria's transport ministry, Sleiman Khalil, said, "We are dealing with one of largest ever rescue operations."
He added that they are covering a large area that extends along the entire Syrian coast, noting that high waves were hampering their efforts. Syrian authorities also said Russian ships were assisting in the search operations.
Rana Merhi of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said that identified bodies would be later transported to a border crossing to be handed over to the Lebanese Red Cross.
According to BBC, the family of the victims mourn the loss of their loved ones as one fatality, 35-year-old Mustafa Mesto, lost his life alongside his two daughters and son, while his wife and her father are still in critical condition after being transported to a hospital in Syria.
Fleeing Poverty
Mustafa was a Lebanese taxi driver and married to a Syrian Kurd who had fled the country's vicious civil war. They were one family fleeing the devastation of two different nations and had hoped to reach Italy, dreaming of a better life.
But the incident had taken those dreams away, as the victims' families, like those of others who lost their lives on the boat, were in shock. Adla, Mustafa's mother, sat in the middle of a big room filled with grieving relatives. She wailed out loud, blaming the Lebanese government for her son's horrific fate.
She said, "He ran away from poverty and the terrible conditions they left us in. These politicians could not care less about our lives. Nothing will bring him back to me, nothing will bring his little children back to me."
In a similar incident in April, a boat that left the northern city of Tripoli was headed for Europe before it sank off the coast, killing dozens of people. There were claims that the ship was rammed by a vessel carrying Lebanese military personnel, an accusation that added to the anger in Tripoli about the city's marginalization, the Washington Post reported.