Death toll from sunken Lebanon migrant boat rises to 94

CAIRO (Reuters) -The death toll from a migrant boat that sank off the Syrian coast after sailing from Lebanon earlier this week has risen to 94, after more bodies were recovered from Syria’s Baniyas coast on the Mediterranean, Syrian state TV said on Saturday.

It is the deadliest such voyage yet from Lebanon, where mounting economic desperation has led many to board often rickety and overcrowded boats in the hope of reaching Europe.

Syrian authorities began finding bodies off the coast of the northern port city of Tartus on Thursday afternoon. The Syrian transport ministry quoted survivors as saying the boat had left from Lebanon’s northern Minyeh region on Tuesday with between 120 and 150 people on board, bound for Europe.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba and Nayera Abdallah; Writing by Yasmin Hussein; Editing by David Clarke and Clelia Oziel)