The Lebanese Army announced in a statement Monday that it arrested eight people, including seven Lebanese for delinquency, and foiled a clandestine migration attempt of Syrians at sea off the coast of Arida in Akkar.

“As part of security measures implemented by the military institution in various regions, army units conducted searches in the homes of wanted persons and arrested six civilians,” the statement said, before providing the following details: the Lebanese A.H., Kh.H., A.H. were arrested in the villages of Adous and Majdaloun (Baalbeck) ... and the three others, M.G., A.G., and Y.G. in the Khaldeh region in Mount Lebanon, for “firing shots.” The troop indicated that “war weapons and ammunition were seized in their possession.”

Additionally, the army “arrested at the Wadi Turkman checkpoint (Hermel) the Lebanese M.S. and the Syrian Y.Sh., with a "weapon, ammunition, and drugs" in their possession.

The Lebanese Army announced that a “naval forces patrol successfully thwarted a clandestine migration attempt by 27 Syrians off the coast of Arida,” noting that an investigation was opened.

Lebanon hosts, according to official estimates, 1.5 million Syrians, including 755,426 registered as refugees with the U.N., who fled the civil war in their country since 2011. Last March, massacres on the Syrian coast, in predominantly Alawite villages, drove more than 20,000 Syrians to seek refuge in North Lebanon, primarily in Akkar villages.