Gunfire in Tripoli overnight following protest by families of victims of April shipwreck

BEIRUT — Heavy automatic weapon fire was heard overnight in several neighborhoods of Tripoli following protests by the families of the victims of the boat that sank off the coast of the North Lebanon city in April, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in North Lebanon reported.

Here’s what we know:

    • According to our correspondent, the Lebanese Army remained deployed in the city on Wednesday morning following the overnight tensions in the area.

    • The gunshots were heard in particular in the districts of Rifa and Qibbeh in the east of Tripoli.

    • Earlier in the day, the families of the victims of the migrant vessel that sank off the coast of the city in April blocked several roads in Tripoli to protest the delay by authorities in finding the bodies of dozens of victims who remain missing. Only seven bodies have so far been found by the Civil Defense and the army following the incident.

    • Relatives of the victims regularly organize protests to demand that the search for the victims of the shipwreck be accelerated. Since the sinking, the Lebanese Army has been carrying out search operations along the Lebanese coast. A spokesperson for the Lebanese Army told L'Orient-Le Jour a month ago that the army had neither the “technical or human means to be able to extract the people” who ended up in the sea during the incident. Some survivors and relatives accuse the Lebanese Army of having hit the boat which led to its sinking, while the Lebanese Army says that if it wasn’t for its intervention, no one would have survived the shipwreck.