The Lebanese Army Intelligence Friday confiscated a fishing boat in the port of the northern city of Tripoli as it was being prepared for smuggling asylum-seekers abroad, a source told The Daily Star. The source said that the confiscated boat contained a compass, gasoline tanks and drinking water, in addition to clothes and food. Last weekend, the Army detained in the northern Nahr al-Bared refugee camp two suspected migrant smugglers. The two Palestinians were preparing to smuggle 21 Palestinians to Turkey aboard a fishing boat, an Army statement said. The 21 Palestinians were arrested later in Jabal Beddawi area in the north Lebanon city of Tripoli. In August, the Internal Security Forces Information Bureau detained 27-year-old Mohammad Rouqaya on charges of using Lebanese ports to smuggle foreigners abroad, a security source told The Daily Star. He was arrested in the northern city of Tripoli for allegedly working with Syrians inside Lebanon to smuggle foreigners out of the country via boat. The source said that Rouqaya had an arrest warrant against him and was linked to the sinking of a boat carrying 20 people, including women and children, on its way to Turkey from Lebanon. At least nine Palestinian refugees died in the incident. The vessel was transporting refugees who had fled Syria's Yarmouk camp and settled in Lebanon's northern refugee camps. Two of the victims were residents of the Beddawi refugee camp in north Lebanon. The ISF and General Security have recorded four cases in the past two months of boats ferrying asylum-seekers from Tripoli's fishermen's port. The vessels used for the journey were no larger than 10 meters in width, similar to those used by local fishermen. Many Syrian refugees have been escaping to Turkey in hopes of crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece, using it as a portal to reach the rest of Europe to seek asylum.
