More bodies of migrants and refugees have been recovered from the sea off Syria after a boat capsized on Thursday, raising the death toll to 89.
Syria’s official news agency SANA reported on Saturday, quoting Iskandar Ammar, a hospital official; “There are 89 victims, while 14 people are receiving treatment at Al-Basel Hospital, two of whom are in intensive care.”
The boat sank off the Syrian port of Tartous, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Tripoli in Lebanon.
Those on board were mostly Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, and included both children and the elderly, the United Nations said.
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.
The dire economic situation has forced Lebanese citizens to join Syrian and Palestinian refugees using dangerous boat journeys in search of a better life.
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