Would-be migrants aboard a ship bound to Italy, before its sinking off North Lebanon, Dec. 31, 2022. (Credit: Courtesy of Michel Hallak)
Lebanese naval forces on Saturday rescued would-be illegal migrants stranded off the coast of Selaata, North Lebanon, after their boat sank while they were trying to flee the country, the Lebanese Army reported in a tweet.
According to L'Orient Today's correspondent in the north, the army managed to transfer the migrants to a navy boat heading to the beach of Selaata-Batroun. The naval forces are trying to recover the migrant vessel, which had broken down in the open sea. About 200 Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian would-be illegal migrants were trapped on board the boat, which set sail from the beach between Tripoli and Chekka, according to a video sent by one of them to his relatives and seen by L'Orient Today. The passengers were heading for Italy before their boat broke down.
Helicopters are flying over the area, according to our correspondent.
Over the course of the year, dozens of makeshift boats have left the Lebanese coast, particularly for Europe, in an attempt to escape the financial collapse that is paralyzing Lebanon. When these emigration attempts are not prevented by the army, most of these boats — often overcrowded and in poor condition — do not reach their intended destination and must be rescued at sea.
Last September, an illegal emigration attempt from Lebanon resulted in the death of more than 100 people after the boat sank off the coast of Tartous, Syria. This tragedy, one of the deadliest such shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean, was the latest in a series of illegal migration attempts by sea, as more and more residents and refugees seek to flee the widespread socio-economic crisis in Lebanon.