NNA - Commander of the Army's Naval Forces, Colonel Haitham Dinnaoui, said in a press conference this afternoon that "the boat which sank off Tripoli's shore yesterday night is a small boat made in 1974, which is 10 meters in length and 3 meters in width, with a maximum permissible load of only 10 persons."

He added that "there were no life jackets or life rafts on the boat," stressing that "the army tried to prevent the boat from setting out, but it was faster than us." 

"The boat's cargo prevented it from moving away from the shore," the Colonel said, adding that "the captain of the boat took the decision to carry out maneuvers to escape from the sentinel in a way that led to the boat's crash."

"The number of survivors reached 45, and today we have 5 bodies, in addition to the girl who died yesterday, and it is possible that there are missing persons that we are trying to identify," explained Dinnaoui.

=========R.Sh.