Boat carrying 60 migrants capsizes off north Lebanon

A boat carrying 60 migrants capsized Saturday night off the Lebanese coast, the Lebanese Red Cross said. It was not immediately clear if there were any deaths.
The Red Cross said it sent 10 ambulances to the port of the northern city of Tripoli in case there were casualties.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s office said the boast capsized shortly after leaving the northern coastal town of Qalamoun near Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city.
Mikati’s office said the Lebanese army and authorities were on high alert following the case.
An AFP correspondent in northern Lebanon said the army had closed off the port, allowing entry only to ambulances which were zipping in and out.
Families of some of the passengers started gathering to check on their loves ones but they too were denied access.
The fate of the passengers was not immediately clear.
For many years Lebanon was a country that took in refugees, but since the country’s economic meltdown began in October 2019, thousands of people have left on boats heading to Europe.
Lebanon, a small Mediterranean nation of 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, is in the grip of the worst economic crisis in the country’s modern history. The economic meltdown has put more three-quarters of the country’s population into poverty.
The UN refugee agency says at least 1,570 people, 186 of them Lebanese, left or tried to leave illegally by sea from Lebanon between January and November 2021.
Most were hoping to reach European Union member Cyprus, an island 175 kilometers (110 miles) away.
This is up from 270 passengers, including 40 Lebanese, in 2019.
Most of those trying to leave Lebanon by sea are Syrian refugees, but Lebanese have increasingly joined their ranks.

 

 

 

Source: Arab News

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