Vicky saade-Akhbar Al Yawm
It has been almost a year, everything is still blurry, unclear and certainly we have not reached justice for those victims. You all know what the topic of the article, just by reading those few words. The 4th of August date left a deep heartache feeling to every and each one of these who consider themselves part of this poor country, Lebanon.
The Economic and Social Justice Initiative "معاً" MAAN organized a meeting that brought together the families of the victims of the Beirut Port explosion of various nationalities and a number of representatives of embassies and civil society associations, during which it launched the book Beirut 607 Living Ashes, which was prepared by a team of journalist. It narrates the biography of the victims of the Beirut Port explosion on 4 August 2020, of whom journalists were able to reach the families of the 214 victims.
A huge number of journalists worked on a daily basis for a long time to gather around all kinds of information on each and every one of the victims of the blast. The main idea behind the book is to shed light on the 215 of them, one by one: who they are, how old are they, what was their personality like and a little bit of everything about the tiniest details of each of their life’s.
From the victims we all talked about, to people who were not even mentioned in public records. Shameful to say, but the data collected by official bodies remains disappointing in terms of follow-up and reliable information, even months after the explosion. If it had been enough, then Aram Tersarkissian's dead body would not be kept in the morgue of Machghara Governmental Hospital for more than six months, before it was honorably buried on February 17, 2021. Three other corpses remain in the same hospital, waiting on a glimpse of humanity.
Yes, the Lebanese people have much more problems to deal with at the moment, but it just feels like all things related to the blast are simple becoming part of the things that us Lebanese try to deny because it is just how things work in this country. We are getting used to things that are not even normal.is it normal? Is it normal that after experiencing one of the world’s most harming blasts, to forget it like it never happened? Yes, we are taking care of all damages but what about justice? What about justice to all those victims.
Sara Tawil, head of "معاً" projects told ‘Akhbar Al Yawm’ news agency that the reason behind this book is to honor all victims and emphasize that they are not just records and numbers resulting from the blast.as she also added “we are working on several projects with the families of the victims to ensure some kind of justice at the end”
This book is just another form of recognition to this crime which all lights are being dimmed on at the moment. Will we, Lebanese people, do something about it? Or is it just another traumatizing experience that Lebanese people have to go through?