The death toll from a migrant boat that sank off Syria this week has risen to 86.

It left Lebanon on Tuesday and news of the sinking started to emerge on Thursday.

Syria’s health minister previously said at least 77 had died, but on Saturday state TV said it had increased to 86.

The boat was carrying Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians.

Twenty people were rescued and are being treated at hospital in the coastal city of Tartus, Syrian TV said on Friday.

Lebanon’s transport minister said the survivors were 12 Syrians, five Lebanese and three Palestinians.

There are conflicting accounts of how many people were on the boat, with some reports saying at least 120.

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The tragedy comes as people in Lebanon struggle with a dire economic situation that has drawn more than three quarters of its six million people into poverty.

Hyperinflation has meant prices have increased dramatically and many have sold their possessions to pay smugglers to get them to Europe.

Some of the victims’ bodies have been taken back to Lebanon, while relatives have also been crossing into Syria to identify family members.

Tartus governor Abdul-Halim Khalil told a government radio station that the boat had sunk on Wednesday.

At least 31 bodies washed ashore and the rest were recovered at sea, said Syrian news agency SANA, quoting a port official.

One survivor being treated in hospital, Wissam Tellawi, lost two of his daughters – and his wife and two sons were also missing.

Mr Tellawi’s father told local Al-Jadeed TV his son had given smugglers the family’s apartment in exchange for the journey.

The Lebanese army said they had raided homes of suspected people smugglers on Friday, detaining four in the northern city of Tripoli and three others in a nearby village.

This week’s incident is by far the deadliest of recent migrant boat sinkings in the area.

In April, dozens were killed when a boat heading to Italy went down three miles off Tripoli after a confrontation with Lebanon’s navy.

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