At least one dead child in sinking of a migrant boat off Lebanon

The complete balance sheet is not known but 45 people have, for the moment, been rescued while the vessel carried about sixty migrants. Crossings multiply because of the unprecedented economic crisis that strikes the country.

Le Monde with AFP

A child was found dead, and 45 people were rescued on Saturday, April 23, after the sinking of a migrant boat off Lebanon, said the Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamie, at a local radio.

“Research is continuing,” said Hamie, who said the boat, Lebanon’s party and who sank near the coast, at the level of the city of Tripoli, in the north of the country, transported about sixty people.

The Lebanese Red Cross has declared sending ten ambulances to Tripoli. A correspondent of the France-Presse agency (AFP) found that the army had closed the port, leaving only the ambulances that were backwards. The families of some passengers gathered to take news, but the access was denied.

“It happened because of the politicians who forced the Lebanese unemployed to leave the country,” said a man who was waiting for news from a loved one outside the port.

Join the island of Cyprus

Lebanon, a country of about six million inhabitants, is struggling with an unprecedented financial crisis and, according to the World Bank, of a magnitude usually associated with situations of war. The local currency, the Lebanese book, has depreciated sharply and the majority of the population lives below the poverty line.

/Media reports.