The families of the victims, seven dead and dozens of disappeared, want state responses, while the boat has flowed after a collision with a Lebanese navy ship.
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Tripoli found a semblance of calm. But deaf anger crosses the port city in northern Lebanon from the sinking of a migrant boat on April 23. The collision of the boat with a Lebanese navy ship, which sought to make them turn back, ended with the death of seven people, and around thirty disappeared, including a majority of Lebanese. Their families do not intend to be silent until the State has given them answers.
“There has been an army error, they must recognize it. We no longer have confidence in the government, we want an international investigation. All that political leaders do is instrumentalize our drama To beg international aid, of which they fly three-quarters, “accuses Bilal al-Dandachi, from the house of the disadvantaged district of Riva, on the heights of the city, where he receives condolences. The wife and two of the children of this 47 -year -old restaurant employee, survivor the sinking, are still missing. One of his sisters-in-law and five of his nephews and nieces have also died or missing.
“They did it on purpose”
On April 23, at 7 p.m., three brothers from the Dandachi family and their families embarked aboard a small pleasure boat, with other families in the neighborhood, from an abandoned tourist site south of Tripoli. Destination: Italy. After an attempted crossing aborted six months earlier, the three brothers organized the trip themselves. They bought the boat and the equipment – GPS, satellite phone, fuel oil, life jackets and food – and learned to navigate with one of the other members of the equipped. Women and children settled in the only room of the boat, the men stayed on the bridge.
After an hour and a half of navigation, the boat was intercepted by an outboard of the Lebanese navy, which tried in vain to make them turn back. A naval ship joined them. “When he missed out on us, it made waves. The boat was tangled, the captain tried to master him,” continues Bilal al-Dandachi, who affirms that insults have also been uttered by certain soldiers. The ship, he said, moved away for a moment, then rushed in their direction twice. “They have come close to us and cracked the boat. They did it on purpose,” he accuses, denouncing “the stupidity of these soldiers who led to a crime”.
The Lebanese navy refutes this version. Its leader, Haitham Dannaoui, said that the captain of the clandestine boat had struck the ship by trying to escape. The “crime”, denounced the officer, was to pile up dozens of people, without life vests, on a boat 10 meters long and three wide, fifty years old and a maximum capacity of Ten passengers. At least 84 people were on board, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
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