Funeral of a migrant who died at sea off the coast of Tripoli, North Lebanon, on April 25, 2022 in the sinking of a boat off Qalamoun. (Credit: Ibrahim Chalhoub / AFP)
Emotions ran high Monday in Tripoli during the funeral of those who died Saturday night after a boat sank off Qalamoun. While the official death toll recorded remains six, more than thirty people are still missing, and an intensive search continues by land, air and sea.
Here’s what we know:
• Spokesman for the Lebanese Army, Col. Fadi Abou Eid, and the secretary general of the Lebanese Red Cross, George Kettaneh, indicated that the official death toll still amounted to six while other reports said two additional bodies were recovered. At least 48 people have been rescued so far. The migrants on board the ship were Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian.
• A security source told L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the region that 33 people are still missing and probably perished, while seven others are dead. The National News Agency reported that the body of a woman was found Monday morning in Tripoli, as was another body late Sunday afternoon in Chekka, further south. Three children, aged four, six and eight, whose mother perished after the boat sank, are also missing.
• After a precarious calm on Monday morning, tensions flared up again in Tripoli shortly after noon, with protesters blocking the road to Bab al-Tabbaneh with dumpsters. Shots were also reportedly fired during the funerals of the victims.
• On Sunday, the army said the boat sank just after leaving Qalamoun, south of Tripoli, due to it being over safe capacity. One of the survivors disputed this, saying the boat sank after being chased by the army. "The patrol boat hit our boat twice," he told AFP at the Port of Tripoli, before families of survivors asked him to be quiet.
• In Beirut, demonstrators held a sit-in in front of the home of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, where security forces were deployed. "The castaways are the victims of the situation in the country, deputies from Tripoli and all of Lebanon," someone said. "We call on all leaders to resign", added another. Photos and videos circulating on social media show a banner hung in frot of Mikati’s luxury yacht moored in Nice, France, which reads: "The inhabitants of Tripoli are being murdered by the owner of this yacht." With an estimated fortune of $2.7 billion according to Forbes magazine, Mikati, a native of Tripoli, is seen by many in Lebanon as one of the symbols of a ruling class mired in corruption and nepotism, and suspected of illicit enrichment.
• In the southern city of Saida, dozens of people held a sit-in in solidarity with the deceased migrants. “The dead are not victims of the shipwreck but of the corrupt political class," they lamented, as motorbike convoys roamed the streets of Saida to decry the inaction of political leaders.