Two bodies were recovered and more than 200 migrants, most of them Syrians, were rescued

ARK News… The Lebanese army, Saturday 31. 12. 2022, reported that he rescued more than 200 immigrants and recovered the bodies of two people after the boat carrying them sank off the northern Lebanese coast.

The Lebanese army wrote on Twitter, "The Naval Forces, in cooperation with UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in southern Lebanon), have finished rescuing the 232 people who were on board the boat off Sal’ata beach, and they are currently being transferred to the port of Tripoli, and the bodies of two people who drowned during the rescue operation were also recovered."

He explained in another tweet that these people "were trying to leave Lebanese territorial waters illegally."

An AFP correspondent at the port of Tripoli in northern Lebanon said that the passengers were men, women, and children, including the majority of Syrians and about 50 Lebanese.

Dozens of their relatives gathered in the port, including Younis Juma, who resides in Lebanon and hails from Idlib in northwestern Syria.

"I intended to go with my brother, but I was unable to collect the required amount," Jum’a told AFP, noting that his brother "had taken a loan to leave."

He added, "We can no longer live in this country, nor in Syria," in which about 500,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the war in 2011.

For his part, the Syrian youth, Ahmed Yassin, whose sister and husband was among the rescued migrants, said "We are like dead people in this country. We will try every day to go to sea."

"If I had the money, I would go with them," he added.

In late September, a boat sailing from Lebanon sank off the coast of Syria, killing nearly 100 people on board in one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean.

The phenomenon of illegal immigration from northern Lebanon has become active in recent years. The destination of the boats is often Cyprus, a member state of the European Union located off the coast of Lebanon.

According to the United Nations, at least 38 boats carrying more than 1,500 people left or attempted to leave Lebanon by sea between January and November 2021.

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