Most of them Syrians, broke down and began to sink after setting passage from the northern seacoast of Lebanon. Since the collapse of Lebanon’s frugality in 2019, an increasing number of people — substantially Syrian and Palestinian deportees but also Lebanese citizens have tried to leave the country and reach Europe by ocean. The attempts frequently turn deadly. This time, deliverance crews from Lebanon’s cortege and U.N peacekeepers stationed along the border with Israel, were able to save all but two of the passengers, a Syrian woman and a child who drowned. For numerous of the survivors, still, the relief was transitory.
After bringing them back to reinforcement, to the harborage of Tripoli, where they recovered overnight, the Lebanese army loaded nearly 200 saved Syrians into exchanges and dropped them on the Syrian side of an unofficial border crossing in Wadi Khaled, a remote area of northeastern Lebanon, some of the survivors and mortal rights observers said.
Once on the other side of the border, the boat survivors were interdicted by men wearing Syrian army uniforms who punched them into large plastic glasshouses.
They were held interned there until family members paid to have them released and brought back to Lebanon by bootleggers. Syria has the loftiest population of deportees per capita in the world. But since the country’s profitable meltdown erupted three times, Lebanese officers have increasingly called for a mass return of the Syrians.