Eight bodies recovered in hours | Death toll from migrant boat approximates 100 while tens others still missing
SOHR sources have reported that new bodies of people, who were aboard the migrant boat which sank off Syria on Wednesday, were recovered at the sea, nearly 40 kilo metres away from Tartus shore, bringing the total number of bodies which were recovered this evening to eight.
Observatory sources have just reported that workers affiliated to Baniyas port recovered, this evening, four more bodies of people who were aboard the migrant boat which sank off Syria on Wednesday.
Accordingly, the number of confirmed deaths due to the disaster of the migrant boat which sank in the Mediterranean sea near the Syrian coastline has reached 99. Meanwhile, the fate of tens others remains unknown, although the disaster was reported about nearly 48 hours ago.
Reliable sources had informed SOHR that residents found more bodies floating on the sea near Baniyas city in Tartous province on the Syrian coastline, amid the failure of the Syrian regime to carry out its duties. It is no wonder the regime did not lift a finger as the regime mastered all the ways of killing, starving and displacing the Syrian people since the onset of the Syrian Revolution.
Earlier this morning, SOHR published a report which read, “it has been four days since the perilous journey of the “migrant boat” started, and dozens of migrants are still missing, and their fate remains unknown.
Migrant dreams of Europe turned into a nightmare when the boat just a few hours after it set off sank. The hopeless people paid the heavy cost of this tragedy, they paid not just a huge sum that went into the pockets of human traffickers, but their lives were the heavy cost of this journey.
According to SOHR sources, at least 88 people of Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese dead and at least 20 survived, while the rest of nearly 50 people still missing and the fate of a number of survivors, who had fled Syria for Lebanon, are in danger because they are wanted by Syrian regime.
The boat of only 30 passengers capacity maximum carried more than 160 people, including men and young men, women, young women and children, their sects and nationalities differed, bringing them together with one dream and one goal, which is to find a new life after being distressed in Syria and Lebanon. Most of the migrants sold all they owned and paid huge sums to flee Lebanon for Europe, but their journey ended in tragedy.
Survivors of the “death boat” narrate the disaster that befell them and how the boat capsized them a few hours after it set off.
One of the survivors of the migrant boat, a young woman, said: “Three hours after we set off we start to urge and ask them to take us back, and we will not get our money back.”
Another man said: “The number of passengers onboard the boat was over 160 people and the boat was shaking hard because of the high waves, then the boat capsized, and some people died and sank immediately.”
It is worth noting that the “death boat” was carrying young men and women university graduates and students, a young man who went with his fiancée, a man with his wife and children, a young woman who got married and was on her way to her husband and many chilling human conditions. All of them, despair and helplessness in their country force them to risk their lives hoping their dreams would come true, but unfortunately their dreams dissipated and shattered with the sinking of their boat in the sea.
We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, offer our thoughts and deepest condolences to the families of the victims and hope to find more survivors.
We warn that the “death boat” will not be the last, owing to the dire living conditions in the area, as many people attempt daily to migrate illegally to Europe from separate areas by land and sea.
Furthermore, we also assign full responsibility for this tragedy and the disastrous situation Syria is in right now.”