Members of the Lebanese Red Cross wait at al-Arida border crossing in North Lebanon to receive the bodies of families who were aboard the migrant boat that departed Lebanon and capsized off the coast of Syria on Sept. 22, 2022. (Courtesy of Michel Hallak)
BEIRUT — The bodies of four more victims of the migrant boat that departed Lebanon and capsized off the coast of Tartus on Sept. 22 were returned to Lebanon on Friday, L'Orient Today's correspondent in the north reported.
The victims were identified as three Palestinians and one Lebanese national, according to our correspondent.
A Syrian Red Crescent convoy, coordinated by Syrian health authorities, transported the bodies from al-Basel Hospital in the Syria's Tartus to the al-Arida crossing on the Lebanon-Syria border, where the Lebanese Red Cross received them.
However, more than a week after the shipwreck, many of the bodies have become unrecognizable. Many victims' families are still waiting to identify their relatives — several of whom are still at al-Basel Hospital — through DNA tests.
An official count of passengers aboard the sunken boat is still unknown, but the number is widely reported to be around 150. The official death toll of the shipwreck exceeded 100 last week, with rescued 21 survivors. Nationals from Syria, Palestine and Lebanon were all aboard the boat, and roughly 30 remain missing.
Three more migrant boast have left Lebanon shores over the past two days, according to our correspondent. The number of would-be migrants undertaking treacherous journeys from Lebanon across the Mediterranean to Europe more than doubled in 2022 for the second year in a row, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while the primary destination for the smuggler boats shifted from Cyprus to Italy.
An estimated 180 travelers, including women and children, who departed from Lebanon on multiple vessels bound for Europe, are still detained in Turkey and Greece, according to L'Orient Today's correspondent.
A meeting attended by Mokhtar al-Kassar of Bebnin, Akkar, North Lebanon, was held Saturday to discuss the repatriation of these transit migrants, many of whom do not have identification papers.
During the meeting, Kassar said the Lebanese embassy contacted the migrants in Turkey, adding that work is underway to secure the required papers for the issuance of a registration or identity card.
Kassar also said he will visit the Director of General Security, Abbas Ibrahim, to follow up on this issue, calling on the Lebanese state "to assign an official mission to the Higher Relief Commission in order to secure the return of our families."
According to the families, Turkish authorities are allegedly demanding a release fee of $150 to $200 per person. Many family members said their relatives don't have enough money to finance their own release and instead called on the Lebanese government to settle the matter.
On Sept. 19, a patrol of the General Directorate of Internal Security Forces carried out an ambush in the locality of al-Arida, which resulted in the arrest of three smugglers "while they were on their way to the seashore," where diesel gallons and food packages used for the sea crossing were seized, according to the state-run National News Agency.
According to the ISF statement released on Saturday, the smugglers "confessed to what was attributed to them in terms of preparing an operation to smuggle people by sea to Italy."
Reporting contributed by Michel Hallak