73 dead in migrant shipwreck off Syria after leaving Lebanon

At least 73 migrants drowned when a boat they boarded in Lebanon sank off Syria’s coast, Syria’s health minister said Friday, the deadliest such shipwreck from Lebanon in recent years.

Lebanon, which since 2019 has been mired in a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times, has become a launch pad for illegal migration, with its own citizens joining Syrian and Palestinian refugees clamouring to leave the country.

Around 150 people, mostly Lebanese and Syrians, were on board the small boat that sank Thursday in the Mediterranean Sea off the Syrian city of Tartus.

“The number of victims from the shipwreck has reached 73 people,” Syria’s Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash said in a statement, adding that 20 survivors were being treated in hospital in Tartus.

Of the rescued, five were Lebanese, Lebanon’s aretaker transport minister Ali Hamie told AFP.

“I am discussing with Syria’s transport minister a mechanism to retrieve the corpses from Syria,” Hamie said.

Tartus is the southernmost of Syria’s main ports, and lies some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli, where the passengers had boarded.

“We are dealing with one of our largest ever rescue operations,” Sleiman Khalil, an official at Syria’s transport ministry told AFP.

“We are covering a large area that extends along the entire Syrian coast,” he added, saying high waves made their work challenging.