BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — A boat carrying around 60 passengers has capsized off the coast of north Lebanon, the Red Cross said on Saturday.

“A boat carrying 60 people has sunk. The Red Cross has dispatched seven ambulances to Tripoli’s port,” the Red Cross said in a statement.

The fate of the passengers was not immediately clear.

The Red Cross did not specify whether they were migrants trying to leave the country illegally.

Lebanon, a country of around six million people, is grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis that the World Bank says is on a scale usually associated with wars.

The currency has lost more than 90 per cent of its purchasing power and the majority of the population lives below the poverty line.

The UN refugee agency says at least 1,570 people, 186 of them Lebanese, left or tried to leave illegally by sea from Lebanon between January and November 2021.

Most were hoping to reach European Union member Cyprus, an island 175 kilometres (110 miles) away.

This is up from 270 passengers, including 40 Lebanese in 2019.

Most of those trying to leave Lebanon by sea are Syrian refugees, but Lebanese have increasingly joined their ranks.