A young woman and her small child have remained and will remain at the bottom of the sea.
The two bodies were trapped in the carcass of a boat sunk months ago off the coast of Lebanon.
They were spotted by rescuers stuck in a porthole.
It is the most heartbreaking fragment of the testimony of one of the participants in the rescue operations, which ended without result in the last hours in northern Lebanon, of the more than 30 bodies of Lebanese and Syrian migrants who drowned four months ago after attempting a journey of despair towards the Italian coasts.
"There was a woman down the back, whose body got stuck halfway out of a porthole, while she was holding her son ... it broke our hearts," said Tom Zreika, one of the rescuers, quoted earlier today. by the Lebanese media.
On April 24, the boat carrying more than 85 migrants sank in circumstances yet to be clarified after contact with a Lebanese navy patrol boat.
About forty people, mostly women and children, were trapped in the boat and could not escape to safety.
The recovery operations, which began in recent days under the formal coordination of the Lebanese Navy, have been organized with months of delay by a private initiative, with a fundraising managed in part by a network of families of the victims, mostly present. in Australia.
After some attempts, during which the remains of some people were brought to the surface and unraveled under the eyes of the rescuers, the Lebanese navy informed the Australian non-governmental organization AusRelief of the impossibility of continuing for unspecified "security risks" .
The approximately 30 bodies not recovered, including that of the young woman and her son, are therefore destined to remain at the bottom of the sea, media reports.