Sharjah 24 – AFP: Eighty-nine bodies have been recovered since a boat carrying migrants from Lebanon sunk off Syria's coast, Syrian state media said Saturday, as the Lebanese army said it arrested a suspected smuggler behind one of the deadliest recent shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean.
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), called it a "heart-wrenching tragedy".
At least 14 people rescued were recovering in hospitals in Syria while six others were discharged, as search efforts continued, with several people still missing since the boat sank on Thursday.
"There are 89 victims, while 14 people are receiving treatment at Al-Basel Hospital, two of whom are in intensive care," Syria's official news agency SANA reported, quoting Iskandar Ammar, a hospital official.
Lebanon's army said it arrested a Lebanese man who "admitted to organising the recent smuggling operation from Lebanon to Italy by sea".
As many as 150 people were on board the small boat that sank off the Syrian port of Tartus, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Tripoli in Lebanon, from where the migrants set sail.
Those on board were mostly Lebanese and Syrians and Palestinians, and included both children and the elderly, the UN said.
Families in Lebanon were to hold a second day of funerals Saturday after they were handed bodies of relatives on Friday night through the Arida border crossing with Syria.
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