⁍ Lebanon’s economic crisis has crashed the Lebanese pound and left him unable to feed his seven children.

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⁍ He was back in Tripoli, one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, after being sent back by Cyprus.

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⁍ UNHCR has tracked 21 boats leaving Lebanon between July and Sept. 14.

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⁍ The previous year, there were 17 in total.

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– For years, small boats have left northern Lebanon’s coast, packed with desperate migrants hoping to reach European shores. Until recently, they carried mostly Syrian and Palestinian refugees. But with Lebanon in freefall, its citizens have begun joining their ranks in larger numbers. The United Nations Refugee Agency has tracked 21 boats leaving Lebanon between July and Sept. 14. The previous year, there were 17 in total. The increase has worried Cypriot authorities, especially given the global pandemic. The island is the closest European Union member state to the Middle East and has seen a gradual rise in arrivals of undocumented migrants and refugees in the past two years, as other routes have become more difficult to cross. After 28 hours lost at sea, Ghandour says his boat, carrying his wife, children, and other relatives, arrived on a beach near the seaside resort of Larnaca. He says his family was detained in a camp for several days, tested for Covid-19, and prevented from lodging a formal claim for asylum before being sent back to Lebanon. “I didn’t think they would send us back,” he tells Reuters. “They should have just let us die in the water. It’s better than coming back here.” Cypriot authorities say about 230 Lebanese and Syrians were sent back to Lebanon by sea in early September. They had arrived in Cyprus on five boats during the previous weeks. “Following our government’s orders and after consultations between the two governments (Cyprus and Lebanon), we safely returned them on September 6, 7 and 8,’s the chief of the Cypriot police,” says a rep. Human Rights Watch.