Damascus hands Lebanon over bodies of three Lebanese sisters washed up in Syria

The Syrian State news agency SANA said on Sunday that the Syrian authorities handed over Lebanon the bodies of three Lebanese sisters who went missing one week ago and were found washed up on the beach of the Syrian coastal town of Tartous.

 

The Syrian Ministry of Interior announced that the bodies of three women who are believed to be in their twenties and thirties were found and that forensic doctors determined that they died from drowning "three days before" they were found.

 

A Lebanese security official told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that contact was made with the Syrian side to confirm that the bodies belonged to the three missing women.

 

Syria then handed over the bodies of the three women to the Lebanese side, after the Lebanese embassy in Damascus contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and after the father of the three women identified their bodies.

 

The circumstances behind the incident are yet to be known.

 

The Lebanese official suggested that the force of the waves transported the girls to Syrian beach of Tartous, noting that investigations are underway with members of their  family.