Students stage a sit-in at a school in Deir al-Ahmar, Bekaa in Lebanon on March 2, 2023. (Courtesy of: Sarah Abdallah)
BEIRUT — Students of the Holy Family Sisters school staged a sit-in on Thursday in Deir al-Ahmar, in the northwestern Bekaa Valley, to express their anger over the discharge of wastewater from a non-operational sewage treatment plant near the locality, our correspondent in the region reported.
The demonstration took place in the school yard and was organized by the school's administration and a group of students, according to our correspondent. The protesters claimed that the leaks from the sewage plant, which has been shut down for years, threaten the health of the 500 school students, putting them and the inhabitants of the region at risk of cholera, shortness of breath, skin infections and cancerous diseases.
Present at the sit-in, the Maronite Bishop Hanna Rahme stressed that the residents of Deir al-Ahmar can no longer bear the heavily polluted water that flows daily into the locality and around the school.
"The school children, as well as the soldiers deployed near this polluted water, are suffering from diseases, and the groundwater in the area is threatened," the bishop claimed. He also demanded that the authorities find solutions to what has now become a "lake" of stagnant water "that threatens the lives of 120,000 people."
The school's headmistress, Sister Rima Maalouf, spoke about the effects of this pollution on the health of students, calling it an "environmental and humanitarian disaster" and calling for a solution to the situation. She also appealed to the Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai, asking him to intervene in this case.