EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LEBANON Five members of Lebanese family drown on journey to Greece

Record ID: 135090

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/LEBANON Five members of Lebanese family drown on journey to Greece
  • Date: 15th October 2015
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LEBANESE CITIZEN, ALBERT RIZKALLAH, COUSIN OF SAFWAN FAMILY, SAYING: "The state did not help the Lebanese people when they were alive, it should at least have mercy on them when they are dead. The minimum human right in such a disaster is to help us get back the bodies and release the detained in Turkey." MEN AT THE HOUSE OF THE FAMILY BUILDING WHERE T
  • Embargoed: 30th October 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA57H10M3QJXB7P6K4OH7QBLL7T
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Five members of a Lebanese family drowned and another four are missing after the boat carrying them from Turkey to Greece sank in the Mediterranean, relatives said on Thursday (October 5).
    They said 12 members of the family left Lebanon on Sunday (October 11), despairing of their prospects if they stayed in their own country, to make the journey via Turkey to Greece, hoping for a better life in the European Union.
    Mohammed Safwan, whose parents were among the 12 who set off from Lebanon, said the family had decided to travel to Europe because they had heard the borders were open to refugees.
    "They decided to travel because of what is being said about the open borders for refugees, life would be better than here. My dad, my mum, my brothers, my older sister and her children, my cousin and his son. So it is a whole family of 12 people that left Izmir on a boat to Greece and then we learned the news yesterday. There are five bodies till now, two family members are at the police station, one in hospital and there are still four other people we know nothing about yet," said Mohammed Safwan whose parents were among the 12 who set off on Sunday (October 11) from Lebanon.
    Many of the hundreds of thousands of people who have made the dangerous sea crossing to the Greek Mediterranean islands have been fleeing war in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.
    Lebanon is not at war, but relatives of the Safwan family who died at sea said conditions in their own country, which is hosting a million Syrian refugees and has a barely functioning government, were little better.
    The family had already left their home in the Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria where a civil war has raged for more than four years, to a suburb of the capital Beirut.
    "It is a risk but you have no system, no state, no proper health system, no proper education. All officials here care only for themselves, their pockets and their people; they don't think of anyone else," Safwan said.
    Albert Rizkallah, a cousin of the victims, said the family was appealing for help to get their bodies home.
    "The state did not help the Lebanese people when they were alive, it should at least have mercy on them when they are dead. The minimum human right in such a disaster is to help us get back the bodies and release the detained in Turkey," he said.
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