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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Death toll from Lebanon asylum seeker boat tragedy rises to 94
2022-09-26
[ALJAZEERA] More bodies of refugees and migrants colonists have been recovered from the sea off Syria after a boat capsized on Thursday, raising the corpse count to 94 as the Lebanese army said it arrested a suspected smuggler behind one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Four new bodies were recovered on Sunday, bringing the corpse count to 94, according to Lebanese Secretary-General of the Official Higher Relief Commission Mohammad Khair.

More people are believed to be missing as up to 150 people were on board the small boat which sailed from crisis-hit Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
. The boat sank off the Syrian port of Tartous, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
in Lebanon.

Those on board were mostly Lebanese, Syrians and Paleostinians, and included both children and the elderly, the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
said.

Funerals were held for a second day in the Lebanese city of Tripoli for those who died.

The Lebanese army says it has arrested a man it believes was behind the suspected "smuggling operation" to Italia.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), called it a "heart-wrenching tragedy".

Lebanon, a country that hosts more than a million refugees from Syria’s war, has since 2019 been mired in a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times.

Posted by:Fred

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