‘WE ARE GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR A COUNTRY THAT IS DEAD’
▶ Protesters in Beirut storm four ministries as PM says he intends to call Parliamentary elections to address Lebanon’s crisis
Even as they mourned the dead from last week’s blast, hundreds of Beirutis took to the streets of their city yesterday to protest against Lebanon’s government.
Protesters calling for an end to corruption and the resignation of the country’s entire political class stormed the offices of the foreign, economy, energy and environment ministries. TV footage showed demonstrators torching the Azarieh building, where two of the ministries are located.
More than 100 people were injured, according to the Lebanese Red Cross, and the country’s Internal Security Forces said an officer was killed.
Tomorrow, Prime Minister Hassan Diab will propose early elections in an attempt to address the political crisis.
“I am with the Lebanese people in wanting change,” he said on Thursday. “We can’t exit the country’s structural crisis without holding early parliamentary elections.”
Many of the demonstrators had with them mock wooden scaffolds with nooses, and one placard read: “Step down or hang”.
“We are going to get our justice from their necks,” one protester, dressed as an executioner, told The National.
Another protester, Bilal Baba, said: “We are going to a funeral for a country that is dead. It’s more of a funeral than a protest.”
“The politicians and the government should not stand trial – we should kill them. They control the trials so it’s useless. This is a trial by the people,” he said.
Asked if the protests were likely to turn violent, Mr Baba pointed to the damage from Tuesday’s explosion visible all around in the twisted wreckage of buildings.
“More than this?” he asked. People who regard the government as corrupt – there were months of protests against its handling of Lebanon’s economic crisis before this week’s disaster – say it has let them down again.
There were reports yesterday that live rounds were fired and police began using tear gas soon after the protests began, with some demonstrators throwing the canisters back.
Hana Abu Merhi and her friends were cleaning up the streets when the gas hit.
“We came down to what is left of Beirut with our cleaning materials, masks, gloves and water to hand out to the people and help clean up the city,” she said. “We were attacked with a tear-gas bomb and had to run with the crowd and were being pushed around just trying to survive the tear gas.”
She and her friends then helped as a young boy collapsed after inhaling the gas.
Coronavirus was on people’s minds as they protested. One demonstrator, who did not want to be identified, said she stopped protesting because of Covid-19, but now is so outraged she is back on the streets despite it.
“I am wearing two masks over my face,” she said.
Hassan Obeid, 27 said: “We’re here because we’re sick of the system. If we don’t hope for change and do something, and fight for this country, it’s not going to change. We need to live in peace and prosper.”
Twenty people are still missing in Beirut, five days after a massive explosion at the city’s port killed more than 150 people, a health ministry official said yesterday.
The death toll stands at 158, according to an official estimate, but is expected to rise. More than 5,000 people were injured, some seriously.
The wife of the Dutch ambassador to Lebanon died yesterday after being severely injured in the explosion, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said. Hedwig Waltmans-Molier, 55, was injured by the blast as she stood next to her husband, Jan Waltmans, in the living room of their home, the ministry said.
The explosion also caused extensive damage to the Dutch embassy, injuring four other people.
The Syrian embassy said yesterday that more than 40 Syrians were among those killed in the blast.
It did not specify whether the Syrian fatalities were included in the death toll announced by the Lebanese authorities.
“The confirmed number we have of Syrian martyrs so far is 43,” it said.
“The embassy is offering all services to facilitate the transfer some of the corpses back to Syria and is helping bury others in Lebanon.”
The explosion, which devastated large areas of Beirut, stoked long-simmering anger over hardship created by the country’s economic crisis.
At mass demonstrations in the capital yesterday, protesters called for justice for all those who died as a result of the explosion and echoed the original demands of the October protests – the removal of Lebanon’s political class and the abolition of its sectarian system of government.
The revelation that a huge shipment of ammonium nitrate languished for years in a warehouse in the heart of the capital served as shocking proof to many Lebanese of the rot at the core of their country’s political system.
As rescuers still comb the rubble for survivors, President Michel Aoun has rejected an international probe into the catastrophic blast, saying a missile or negligence could have been responsible.
Four bodies were found on Friday near the port’s control room, where many people were expected to have been working at the time of the blast.
No one has been found alive. Early evidence shows top officials knew of the chemical compound’s presence at the port and that safety procedures were knowingly and repeatedly breached.
Mr Aoun also admitted on Friday that the country’s “paralysed” political system had to be “reconsidered”.
He pledged what he called swift justice, but said he regarded an international probe as an attempt to “dilute the truth”.
“There are two possible scenarios for what happened: it was either negligence or foreign interference through a missile or bomb,” he said, the first top Lebanese official to
raise the possibility the port had been attacked.
What ignited the massive shipment of ammonium nitrate remains unclear. Some officials said work had begun recently on repairs to the warehouse, while others suspected that fireworks stored either in the same place or nearby were the cause.
Near the site of the explosion, by the wreckage of the port’s giant grain silos, rescue teams from France, Russia, Germany, Italy and other countries co-ordinated their searches.
The World Food Programme has promised food for affected families and wheat imports to replace lost stocks from the silos. US President Donald Trump said he would join other leaders in a conference call today to discuss co-ordinating international aid.
Countries and UN agencies began delivering assistance, with foreign search-and-rescue teams, medical workers and field hospitals already operating in Beirut.
The UN said it was desperately trying to send aid, medical equipment and food to Lebanon.
The World Food Programme said the country depends on imports for about 85 per cent of its food and issued a warning that their flow could be severely hindered.
“WFP is concerned that the explosion and the damage to the port will exacerbate an already-grim food security situation,” the agency’s spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said.
The severe damage to Lebanon’s largest port “could limit the flow of food supplies into the country and push food prices beyond the reach of many,” she said.
Ms Byrs said the WFP would allocate 5,000 food parcels to families, each pack containing enough to feed a family of five for a month. It also plans to import wheat flour and grains for bakeries and mills to help mitigate bread shortages.
The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, said hospitals were overwhelmed with injured patients. Three hospitals are now deemed to be non-functional. A loss of 400 beds and damage to two more hospitals put a further 100 beds beyond use.
The agency called for $15 million (Dh55m) to cover immediate emergency trauma and humanitarian health needs.
Unicef, the UN children’s agency, said preliminary numbers suggested the homes of up to 100,000 children had been damaged or destroyed.
Initial reports indicated more than 120 schools, serving about 55,000 pupils, were damaged, Unicef spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said.
The agency has launched a funding appeal for an initial $8.25m.
“The needs are immediate and huge,” Ms Mercado said.
The explosion stoked long-simmering anger over hardship caused by the economic crisis