It has been a year since the Beirut port explosion ripped through the city. While there are still more questions than answers, justice and accountability remain a distant dream.
A heartfelt eyewitness account of August 4, 2020. Wissam was with his friends in Karantina until an hour before the explosion. Moments later, he rushed back to a scene of utter devastation to see if any of them were still alive.
With its call for “internationalization,” the Maronite patriarchate has played a card as old as Lebanon itself, to save both itself and the country, while placing Hezbollah in a position of direct rivalry with the largest Christian sect in the region.
“I want to know where my son is. Until now I don’t have any information about his fate.” It has been over two months since the Beirut port explosion, and still people are missing …
Elias Khoury has become the symbol of our failure to convince his generation – our sons – that Lebanon is a country worth living in. Our sons would say: ‘Look at Elias’ photo. Is that what you want for us too?’
“Those who killed my daughter are politically supported. I don’t belong to any political party, and I don’t have enough money to hire a lawyer to get my daughter justice from those who killed her.”
The tourism sector is a vivid example of the country’s economic decline, with enterprises partially or totally closing down, reducing employees’ salaries, or laying them off completely, particularly by forcing them to offer their resignations.
In great awe, we watched their leaked pictures after the meeting, which took place on the quiet away from the media. It was as if we just found out that Fairouz was real, that she has a house, a laugh and that her door was open… but not for us.
