Over time, the families of the victims of the double blast at Beirut port that occurred two years ago, on August 4, 2020, have seen the attention given to their cause dwindle. The media is no longer covering their sit-in strike on the 4th of every month as much. Anonymous are only a handful who attend these gatherings.
“I am sure that people are with us in heart. But everyone is being taken in by the crisis,” believes Ajwad Chaya, who is not going to miss a demonstration. His son Jawad, a 30-year-old soldier, was killed in the gigantic blast that killed more than 200 people and injured more than 6,000. “Even if we become a very small group, we, the relatives of the victims, will continue to mobilize. We want criminals to pay. Sooner or later the truth will come out. »
Two years after the catastrophe, the mystery of August 4th remains intact. The doubt initially relates to the igniter, to the way in which the fuel from the explosion caught fire – an ammonium nitrate store stored in a hangar at the port in 2014: welding accident or intent? The reasons why this ticking time bomb was never defused despite repeated warnings are also not clear.
Antoine Sleiman, mechanic, in his garage damaged in the August 4, 2020 explosion in Beirut in the adjacent Quarantine district, August 2, 2022. DALIA KHAMISSY FOR THE WORLD
Under the Lebanese Omerta, these questions are likely to remain unanswered. The Lebanese magistrate in charge of the investigation, Tarek Bitar, who was subjected to heavy attacks and slowed down by the delaying tactics of the accused figures, in particular a request for a stay, was forced to stop his work in December 2021. According to a legal source, the magistrate still needed a few months to complete his training. “Is it the content of the investigation that is causing this outcry, or the fear of a precedent, the possibility of prosecuting senior officials? asks this source.
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Two days after the explosion, then-Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbé said a committee of inquiry would name those responsible for the tragedy in a few days. Nobody had believed in this promise. From the start, the fear of impunity, the principle that made the civil war (1975-1990) possible to end, weighed heavily on this file.
multitude of responsibilities
“It’s sad: many Lebanese have resigned themselves to the investigation being buried,” said Aya Majzoub, a researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW). If disillusionment has set in, the dark hours of August 4, 2020 continue to fuel conversations. “People have decided what happened and who is responsible based on their political opinion,” adds Aya Majzoub. In fact, it was like that from the first days.
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