The destroyed silos at the Beirut Port, on June 27, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassin/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Kuwait is providing Lebanon with a grant worth $1.5 million to finance studies on the potential construction of new grain storage silos at Beirut's Port, which was ravaged by a massive explosion five years ago, Minister of Economy and Trade Amer Bisat announced on Wednesday.
“This step constitutes the first phase of starting the construction of silos in various Lebanese regions as soon as possible, thereby enhancing national food security and securing a strategic infrastructure to protect food stocks, ensure supply stability, and mitigate risks associated with global crises or local emergencies,” Bisat said following a meeting with the Kuwaiti Fund, in comments cited by the state-run National News Agency.
Bisat described the grant as a reflection of the "brotherly relations" between Lebanon and Kuwait, the latter of which has become more prominent in the Lebanese scene since the establishment of Lebanon's new government.
The Port's silos were damaged from the 2020 explosion in which 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a nearby hangar caught fire and detonated, causing one of the biggest non-nuclear blasts in modern history. In 2022, the silos, which stayed standing despite damage to one side, were the site of a series of fires, worsening the damage.
In March of that year, Cabinet approved the demolition of the Beirut Port's silos, but months later, then-caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati sent a letter to the public works minister asking him to "preserve the south block of the silos as a memorial to the port's martyrs."
On Aug. 3, Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh said he has added the silos at the Port to the general inventory of historic monuments.
Costs covered for injured from the explosion?
In further news on the subject, the Association of Families of Martyrs, Injured, and Victims of the Beirut Port Explosion, under the leadership of Ibrahim Hoteit, announced that Health Minister Rakan Nasreddine has agreed to have his ministry cover all of the medical bills associated with injuries resulting from the Port explosion, NNA also reported.
Hoteit, who is close to Hezbollah, has been leading a campaign against the lead investigative judge at the Court of Justice, in the probe into the explosion. His statement on Wednesday describes how the association had lobbied most members of Parliament in an attempt to put an urgent bill on the agenda that would grant blast victims the same rights as those injured in the Lebanese Army.
Having failed to achieve this, Hoteit's committee "approached the minister of public health, who commendably took the initiative to cover 100 percent of the costs of operations and treatment for those injured in the explosion, even if they were insured," the statement reads.
Minister of Social Affairs Haneen al-Sayyed was also contacted, Hoteit said, and agreed to expedite the process of distributing cards to people with special needs and physical disabilities. According to the association, Sayyed also allocated $40 per month to each of the victims of the Port explosion.
The Ministry of Social Affairs was provided with the lists of names in the association's possession, and "additional lists are being prepared."
The association's statement called on all those injured in the explosion who have not yet done so to reach out and register their names so that they can be added to the lists to benefit from these services.
More than 220 people were killed in the explosion and more than 6,500 injured. The mishandling and improper storage of ammonium nitrate and the dangers it posed had been made known to the highest authorities who failed to take action and are now accused of negligence.
