Updated

Relatives say a rubber boat carrying a Lebanese family of 12 to European shores has sunk. Five family members died, three survived and four are missing.

Kelly Safwan, 22, says she learned the boat carrying her family sank soon after it left Turkey because it was punctured. Her father and mother, two young sisters, her brother and his pregnant wife, her sister and three children, her uncle and his son set off from Turkey late Monday.

The family's home in Beirut's Ouazi working-class neighborhood is packed with mourners Thursday, heavy with grief and anxiously waiting for news on the missing four.

The family tragedy highlights how the flood of refugees is encouraging disenchanted people from around the region to make the journey to Europe, expected to get riskier in winter.