Today, Saturday, the Lebanese army rescued 27 migrants whose boat sank off the country’s northern coast, the armed forces announced.
An Army Navy patrol, with the support of Civil Defense, “was able to rescue 27 migrants who were on board a rubber boat while it was sinking off Chekka Beach” in northern Lebanon, according to an army statement.
Migrants, generally seeking to reach Europe from Lebanon, head to the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, 175 kilometers away.
On Saturday, the security forces also announced the arrest of a human smuggler and migrants while they were in a car.
The Internal Security Forces said that the driver confessed to planning to smuggle them on a boat to Cyprus. The statement added that the individuals concerned said, during interrogation, that they paid between 5,000 and 7,000 US dollars per person to reach Europe via Cyprus.
A security source said, requesting anonymity, “We tried to stop them on land before they left by sea.”
The army announced on Thursday that it had prevented about 1,000 illegal crossings of the Lebanese border this week.
The army regularly thwarts smuggling operations by sea and arrests smugglers and those trying to leave.
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