The end of last year almost turned into a new tragedy, were it not for the record speed of the Lebanese army in moving, after the merchants of death, in their boats, set the date for the start of their journey into the unknown at the end of the year.
The army has rescued dozens, if not hundreds, of illegal immigrants off the coast of Selaata, while two people died and, according to reports, 234 immigrants aboard a boat similar to the one still found in the depths of the sea off the coast of Tripoli spent hours of terror and panic after their boat broke up with them as it passed through Lebanese territorial waters, but they were not lucky enough to save one woman and child, who fell back from the UNIFIL naval forces rescue boat after being managed to be saved.
However, the speed and professionalism of the Lebanese Army Navy who intervened averted a terrible catastrophe, and all aboard the boat, which could barely carry a few people, would have been among the casualties, and the Army managed to rescue 232 children, women and young people, while a technical error of the “UNIFIL” boat prevented the rescue of the woman and the child after it turned them around again.
As for the merchant of death, who is still in hiding after the intelligence arrested some of his relatives, it is Abd al-Razzaq al-Hazrawi (Abu Rami), who one night before brought the largest number of immigrants from Syria, after had long prepared for the death journey, and had transported them with other Syrian families present in Lebanon as well as seven Lebanese, five Iraqis and one Palestinian, to different points on the northern bank, and most of them were relocated to the old tunnel Chekka on the night of Friday – Saturday, where the small boats carried the migrants at dawn on Saturday to the boat waiting in the sea in front of Silaata, and the dirt roads of the old tunnel reached the sea points easy to reach for the small boats launch from.
In the confessions of some of the survivors, the merchant of death received six thousand US dollars for each person, and 194 Syrian illegal immigrants were deported from the port of Tripoli in Syria, and army intelligence arrested 7 relatives of the merchant of death who were aboard the boat, noting that the dead woman is the mother of smuggler Hazrawi. There is also a coincidence and a lesson in this.
