The carcass of an abandoned pick up truck in the village of Arsal, bordering Syria, in October 2017. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/OLJ)
BEIRUT – A young man was killed and another was injured when a landmine detonated in Ras Baalbeck in the Bekaa on Friday, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the area reports.
Here’s what we know:
• Mohammad Ali Hassan and Ali Soumaili encountered an unknown object. Not knowing it was a landmine, the pair inadvertently triggered the explosive by throwing a rock at it. The resulting blast killed the first and led to the second’s hospitalization in Arsal.
• Years prior, Ras Baalbeck and the neighboring village, Qaa, were the scene of conflicts with militant jihadist terrorist groups until they were ousted in 2017 by the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah.
• Despite demining efforts undertaken by the Lebanese Army and the United Nations, the detonation of land mines, interspersed in North and South Lebanon in the wake of the wars past, have continued to cause injuries.
• In January, the detonation of a land mine gravely injured a man who was collecting wood on the outskirts of Ayta Ash Shab in South Lebanon.