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The death toll from a migrant boat that sank off the Syrian coast after sailing from Lebanon earlier this week has risen to 94, after more bodies were recovered from Syria’s Baniyas coast on the Mediterranean, Syrian state TV said on Saturday.
It is the deadliest such voyage yet from Lebanon, where mounting economic desperation has led many to board often rickety and overcrowded boats in the hope of reaching Europe.
Syrian authorities began finding bodies off the coast of the northern port city of Tartus on Thursday afternoon. The Syrian transport ministry quoted survivors as saying the boat had left from Lebanon’s northern Minyeh region on Tuesday with between 120 and 150 people on board, bound for Europe.
Lebanese transport minister Ali Hamiye said 20 survivors were being treated in Syrian hospitals, the bulk of them Syrians — about 1 million of whom live in Lebanon as refugees.
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Mr Hamiye said the boat was “very small” and made of wood, describing such sailings as an almost daily occurrence organised by people who did not care for safety.
On Friday, Samer Qubrusli, the Syrian director general of ports, said rescue efforts were continuing.
The number of people who have left or tried to leave Lebanon by sea nearly doubled in 2021 from 2020, the United Nations refugee agency told Reuters earlier this month.
It rose again by more than 70 per cent in 2022 compared with the same period last year. — Reuters