‘I am dead here’: Lebanese join Mideast migrants to Europe

By BASSEM MROUE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanese have been setting off from their country’s Mediterranean shore to attempt the perilous journey by boat to Cyprus and beyond in the hopes of reaching Europe. They join other migrants — Iraqis, Afghans and Sudanese — in leaving their homeland after Lebanon’s economic collapse threw two-thirds of the population into poverty in just over a year. One of them, Ziad Hilweh, knew his family might die on the way. But he says the risk was worth it, to reach the shores of Europe alive for a new start with his wife and three kids, away from the daily humiliation of life in Lebanon.