Migrants who dream of a better life in European countries, in the hope of obtaining asylum and being able to improve their living conditions, are frequent episodes of sinking boats.
The repetition of these incidents raises questions about the psychological state of these migrants and about the ways to deal with this phenomenon, which kills thousands of victims every year.
In the latest example of the sinking of these boats, the death toll from the sinking of a boat carrying illegal immigrants off the Syrian coast has risen to 73, the Syrian Ministry of Health announced Friday, the highest toll. since the beginning of the phenomenon of illegal immigration from Lebanon, which is in crisis.
The boat carrying migrants from Lebanon sank Thursday afternoon off the Syrian coast.
The incident is the latest this year, as multiple crises are pushing Lebanese to flee the three-year economic meltdown in their country, where tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs and the value of the Lebanese pound has depreciated by over 90 percent, which led to the elimination of the purchasing power of thousands of families who now live in conditions of extreme poverty.
Adventure
Psychology specialist, Dr. Rima Bejjani, on the “character of migrants who embark on an adventure” riding the sea through smugglers’ boats.
In his interview with the Al-Hurra website, Bejjani said that “the dire economic situation that migrants are going through is pushing them to look for a better place to live” and described how some people think about use of illegal boats as “incorrect”. “
He explained that “when a person goes through a state of oppression and believes that his rights do not reach him, he experiences frustration, anxiety and emotions that could push him to take a great risk”.
Boats that are not safe from drowning
Under Islamic law, the soul and body are considered a “trust” and killing oneself (suicide) is considered taboo, according to the General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments in the United Arab Emirates.
One of the commission’s muftis said, during a phone call with the “Al-Hurra” website, that “it is not allowed to ride by sea on these boats, from which drowning is not safe, and it is forbidden”.
The Mufti stressed that “it is not permissible to board these boats for various reasons, first of all that the passenger exposes himself to drowning, and that he is killing the soul entrusted to him and which must be preserved, and in secondly, it is also traveling to a country that did not authorize him to travel ”.
According to sources from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “the boat left on the morning of Tuesday 20 September from the port of Minya in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, to the Greek island of Cyprus, carrying 120-150 people, of Lebanese, Syrians and other nationalities, who were on their way to the European Union, but drowned near the Syrian island of Arwad.
Thousands of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians have left Lebanon on boats in recent months in search of a better life in Europe, according to the Associated Press.
Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, including one million Syrian refugees, has suffered a severe economic collapse since the end of 2019, pushing more than three-quarters of its population into poverty.
solutions
In the context of the discussion on the appropriate ways to persuade migrants to reverse their decision and on the solutions to address this phenomenon, Bejjani says that “two main groups need to be addressed in this regard”.
The specialist explained that “the first category are smugglers who cheat people’s money and promise them to achieve the desired goal in Europe, and the second category are migrants themselves”.
He said: “The role of smugglers is very large and they exploit the migrants’ need to earn money from them.
He added: “Smugglers are a scourge and the damage they cause has become too great.”
At the end of his speech, Bejani stressed the need to tighten sanctions for traffickers and said that their danger lies in the fact that they will persuade reluctant people to migrate through illegal and unsafe routes.
As part of the fight against human trafficking from Lebanon by sea with irregular means, the Lebanese Army Command announced on Friday that an Intelligence Directorate patrol in Tripoli, in the port area of northern Lebanon, had arrested four suspected citizens. that they have a history of smuggling operations and also why they were trying to buy a boat to carry out a later operation. They smuggled people illegally across the sea and were caught in possession of a military gun.
Another Directorate patrol in the “Deir Ammar” area near Tripoli arrested four other citizens suspected of smuggling by sea and monitoring naval force patrols. The kidnappings were handed over and investigations into the detainees were initiated under the control of the competent judiciary.
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