Assaad Assaad sold everything to escape poverty in Lebanon, but now he is back, after watching his wife and three children, and his dreams of a better life, perish at sea.

The 36-year-old, who could now pass for 50, was among 18 shell-shocked Lebanese who returned on Sunday after surviving a shipwreck off Indonesia that killed dozens of impoverished migrants from the Middle East.

The Lebanese aboard the Australia-bound boat mainly hailed from the northern Akkar region, where an influx of refugees from neighboring Syria has compounded the endemic poverty of one of the country’s poorest areas.

"We were desperate to leave, and we had hope for a better life, because there is nothing for us here," Assaad said as he stared ahead blankly, still reliving the tragedy.

"I lost everything — my wife, my children, my home," he says, sitting in his parents’ modest house where the crushing silence is only occasionally broken by neighbors calling in to quietly offer their condolences. [Link]