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Bodies of 3 Lebanese Sisters Wash Up in Syria

A dinghy overcrowded with Syrian refugees drifts in the Aegean sea between Turkey and Greece after its motor broke down off the Greek island of Kos on August 11, 2015. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
A dinghy overcrowded with Syrian refugees drifts in the Aegean sea between Turkey and Greece after its motor broke down off the Greek island of Kos on August 11, 2015. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
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Bodies of 3 Lebanese Sisters Wash Up in Syria

A dinghy overcrowded with Syrian refugees drifts in the Aegean sea between Turkey and Greece after its motor broke down off the Greek island of Kos on August 11, 2015. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters
A dinghy overcrowded with Syrian refugees drifts in the Aegean sea between Turkey and Greece after its motor broke down off the Greek island of Kos on August 11, 2015. Yannis Behrakis / Reuters

The bodies of three sisters missing in Lebanon have washed up on a Syrian beach and a probe is underway to determine how they drowned, a Lebanese security official said Sunday.

The sisters went missing from a village in northern Lebanon on Monday, said the official, adding that Syrian authorities found their bodies on Friday.

Their bodies had likely been transported by the current north into Syrian waters, he added.

State news agency SANA said the Lebanese Foreign Ministry had reached out to authorities in Damascus "to verify their identity".

The Syrian Interior Ministry said Saturday it had found "three young women appearing to be in their twenties or thirties" washed up on a beach in the coastal port city of Tartus.

A forensic examination determined they had drowned three days earlier, the ministry said.

But it was not immediately clear how they ended up in the sea, AFP quoted a Lebanese official as saying.

The family of the sisters was being interrogated in Lebanon as part of a probe into their deaths, with possible explanations including attempted migration or "suicide", a security source said.

In recent months, dozens of Lebanese have boarded unsafe dinghies in a bid to flee rising poverty in Lebanon by sea, several not surviving the journey.

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US Eases Restrictions on Syria While Keeping Sanctions in Place

A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
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US Eases Restrictions on Syria While Keeping Sanctions in Place

A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)
A worker stands at a bakery after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 6, 2025. (Reuters)

The US on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria's transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid after opposition factions ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last month.

The US Treasury issued a general license, lasting six months, that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions.

The move does not lift sanctions on the nation that has been battered by more than a decade of war, but indicates a limited show of US support for the new transitional government.

The general license underscores America's commitment to ensuring its sanctions “do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance,” a Treasury Department statement reads.

Since Assad's ouster, representatives from the nation's new de facto authorities have said that the new Syria will be inclusive and open to the world.

The US has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.

The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaeda, and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first US diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster. The US and UN have long designated HTS as a terrorist organization.

HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.

Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters, and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates.

Syria’s infrastructure has been battered, with power cuts rampant in the country and some 90% of its population living in poverty. About half the population won’t know where its next meal will come from, as inflation surges.

The pressure to lift sanctions has mounted in recent years as aid agencies continue to cut programs due to donor fatigue and a massive 2023 earthquake that rocked Syria and Türkiye. The tremor killed over 59,000 people and destroyed critical infrastructure that couldn’t be fixed due to sanctions and overcompliance, despite the US announcing some humanitarian exemptions.