Those present gathered at around 5 p.m. for a now ritual mobilization to denounce the inaction of justice in the wake of the double explosion that shook Beirut on Aug. 4, 2020. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine)
Some thirty relatives of victims of the explosion that devastated the port of Beirut and part of the capital on Aug. 4, 2020, gathered late on Monday afternoon in front of the Emigrant statue in Beirut, as they have done for over three years. So far, they have not missed a single meeting, despite the spillover into South Lebanon of the war between Hamas and Israel that broke out on Oct. 7, turning the Gaza Strip into a battlefield.
According to our reporter in Beirut, Mohammad Yassine, those present gathered at around 5 p.m. for what is now a ritual mobilization to denounce the catastrophe, which claimed the lives of at least 235 people and injured more than 6,500 others. Many held portraits of the victims, often photographs, sometimes drawings.
"Today is the fourth of the month. And like every month at the same time for the past three years, we come here to light candles to comfort the souls of the victims, because we are sure that those [who have died] hear us better than [the living]," said the participants, according to a statement issued on the sidelines of the rally.
"You destroyed Beirut and killed a people without batting an eyelid, and you ignored all the arrest warrants and subpoenas. You are using the entire judicial system to serve your own interests, and you are also preventing it from functioning for [the same reason]," lamented the victims' families, addressing the Lebanese political class.
They also point to the fact that the port explosion was one of the worst non-nuclear explosions in history and urged Judge Habib Rizkallah, First President of the Beirut Court of Appeal, to "open an investigation without delay, as the judicial recess ended months ago and the next recess is approaching." The magistrate was appointed at the beginning of June by the president of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (CSM), Souheil Abboud, to investigate a legal action brought by the public prosecutor Ghassan Oueidate against Tarek Bitar, the examining magistrate in charge of the investigation into the appalling double explosion of Aug. 4. So far, however, he has neither summoned the investigating judge nor issued a ruling.
The victims' families also criticized the "international community" and the "institutions that defend human rights."
"How can we trust [them] to help us obtain justice?" deplored the authors of the statement, pointing out that satellite images of the Aug. 4 disaster held by foreign countries had still not been handed over to the Lebanese justice system.
Relatives of the victims denounce the obstruction of the investigation, blocked by multiple political interferences. At the end of August, the main group of families announced that a petition in favor of an international fact-finding commission had been signed by an unspecified majority of Lebanese MPs and would soon be presented to the UN Security Council.