Seventeen bodies were recovered Saturday after a boat carrying migrants from Lebanon sank off Syria’s coast, raising the overall death toll to 94, Syrian state television said.

A small boat carrying migrants from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine sunk about out to sea from the Syrian port of Tartous, about 30 miles north of Tripoli in Lebanon, from where they set sail.

Children and elderly were among those on board.  

It is one of the eastern Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks of its kind, being called a “heart-wrenching tragedy” by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

For more, check out our exclusive content on CGTN Now and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The China Report.