Bodies of Syrians drowned off Algerian coast reach hometowns
KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – After a month of the incident, the bodies of nine Syrians who died in a migrant boat which sank off the Algerian coast arrived on Wednesday to the cities of Kobani and Manbij, northern Syria.
Muhammad Aref Ali, a doctor from Kobani, told North Press, “The Lebanese Red Cross handed over the bodies to the Syrian Red Crescent at the Arida border-crossing in Tartus.”
On October 5, a boat carrying Syrian migrants, who were heading towards Europe, sank off the coast of Algeria, killing at least 18 Syrians, most of whom were from the city of Kobani.
Following the incident, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) established a committee tasked with returning the bodies safely to Syria.
Ali, who is a member of the committee, said that the committee accompanied the Syrian Red Crescent which carried nine bodies from the Tayha crossing to the Furat Hospital in Manbij city. The crossing connects the AANES-held areas with those controlled by the Syrian government in the Manbij region.
Ten bodies of Syrians – including eight from Kobani, one from Latakia, and one from Manbij – arrived in Lebanon on Tuesday evening. Upon their arrival, they were transported by the International Committee of the Red Cross to Syria and handed over to the Syrian Red Crescent.
After reaching the Furat Hospital in Manbij city, the Kurdish Red Crescent organization handed over the body of the victim from Manbij to his relatives in the city. As for those from Kobani, the organization transferred them from the Furat Hospital to Kobani city, where the victims’ families and residents gathered at the city’s entrance.
Ali stated that the eight bodies from Kobani were handed over to their families, so that each of them would be buried in his villages.
Among those whose bodies were successfully recovered, 12 of them were Syrians, two of whom are still in Algeria as their transferring procedures have not ended yet, and 10 of them reached Syria – one was delivered to Latakia, one to Manbij, and eight to Kobani. The fate of the other six Syrians who died in the incident, all from Kobani, is all but unknown.