SYRIA Beirut: anger and pain for the worst tragedy in the seas of the Eastern Mediterranean

More than a hundred victims, including 10 children, in the sinking of the “death ship” loaded with migrants that occurred on September 23. Teams of volunteers continue to search for the missing. There were about 150 people on board, only 20 survived. The desperate stories of those who managed to save themselves.

Beirut () – Although several days have passed, the shock caused in Lebanese public opinion by the recent shipwreck of a boat loaded with migrants that left Lebanon has not yet subsided and continues to arouse anger and pain. According to the official Syrian agency Sana, citing hospital sources, another body was found the day before yesterday in front of the Syrian city of Tartus, where the tragedy occurred, bringing the total number of bodies recovered after the shipwreck to 100. The Syrian army has launched a massive rescue operation in search of survivors and the bodies of the victims, which are then transported to the Bassel hospital in the coastal city to be identified and repatriated.

The balance of this shipwreck is the deadliest in the eastern Mediterranean, with only 20 survivors rescued so far compared to a total of 150 passengers. The people on board the ship that sailed from the city of Tripoli (north Lebanon) were mostly Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians. According to the regional director of UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa. Adèle Khodr, there are also 10 children among the victims.

In the “ship of death”, as it has been called in the Land of the Cedars, about fifteen Lebanese were traveling. One of those who escaped the tragedy is Wissam al-Tallawi, a family man who lived in Tripoli and was originally from Akkar. The bodies of the two daughters, aged five and nine, were repatriated to Lebanon. Tallawi’s wife and two other sons are still missing.

Moustafa Misto was a taxi driver from Bab el-Raml, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tripoli. When he decided to undertake the adventure with his family, he dreamed of only one thing: to live with dignity. He died at sea with his three children, only his wife managed to survive. Moustafa paid the smugglers nearly €5,000 per adult and half the price for his children. And to do so, he had sold his car and borrowed money from his brothers. His mother had even sold some jewelry to help him.

Young Zein El-Dine Hamad and his pregnant wife were saved only by a Russian navy patrol boat. At the time of the shipwreck, the man had the reflex to jump into the water with his wife before the boat capsized. She lost the baby after spending more than 12 hours at sea, clinging to a piece of the wreckage. “The most difficult moment,” the man told Al-Jadid television channel, “was when my wife became delirious and asked me to buy her a soda.” He then added, his voice cracking with emotion, that many of those who escaped the sinking tried to save themselves by clinging to the wreckage, but then they let go and died. All the passengers who were left under the boat when it capsized drowned.

According to several testimonies, the passengers had begged the ship’s pilot to return when the engine broke and the ship began to be shaken by the large waves that hit the hull. But the smugglers brought a spare engine on board. The pilot would have even received death threats if he changed course.

The boat’s owner, Bilal Nadim, was detained for questioning. According to an army statement released today, the man confessed to his involvement and confirmed that he was the head of a network of migrant smugglers on the Lebanese north coast. Apparently, he not only participated in the organization of illegal crossings but also in drug trafficking, taking advantage of the passage through the north coast of Lebanon, cheaper and more complicated than the Turkish route. Journalist Jana el-Douhaybi, quoted by the Francophone daily L’Orient-Le Jour, speaks of “organized crime” that enjoys the complicity of local law enforcement. And this would also explain why arrested smugglers are usually released a few days later.

The Lebanese NGO Legal Agenda states that the cost of operating a migrant boat requires between 30 and 50 thousand euros per trip and the price to be paid per “head” varies between 30 and 40 thousand euros. Activists say that almost every day there is an attempt to cross from Lebanon into Cyprus or the Italian shores.

In any case, this shipwreck is not only a sign that reveals the enormous depth of the Lebanese economic and financial crisis, but it is also the symbol of the “moral shipwreck” of its leaders, engaged in an unbridled race for power. They have abandoned the majority of the population to their fate, without even the slightest assistance.

At this time all social indicators are in red. Some people no longer have any qualms about stealing power lines and railings for some kind of income. According to a testimony collected in Tripoli, a man sold the iron railing of his balcony to replace his gas cylinder. Interviewed by AFP, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, said that this shipwreck was “a new tragedy” and called on the international community to help “improve the conditions of the people who have been forced to flee their country and also the communities that host them”. More than a million Syrian refugees live in Lebanon who have fled the war in their country and whose repatriation is hampered by regional political issues raised by the international institutions themselves, although much of the Syrian territory has already regained calm.