Lots of of Lebanese gathered solemnly near Beirut’s coast on Monday to commemorate a half-decade for the reason that cataclysmic port blast of 2020, when greater than 200 people were killed in one in every of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Carrying Lebanese flags and portraits of among the victims, a lot of those standing said they felt deeply dissatisfied that nobody has been held to account for the devastating explosion.
“Can someone tell me why five years on we’re still standing here? If everyone stands with this cause, then who’s against us?” said William Noun, whose brother Joseph, a firefighter, was killed by the blast.
“This file needs to shut. It’s been five years and we don’t need to have a sixth,” Noun said from a stage arrange near the port.
The blast destroyed large swathes of Beirut, leaving tens of hundreds of individuals homeless.
The names of all those killed were read out as protesters stood facing the wreckage of the Beirut grain silos, which were heavily damaged within the blast and continued to deteriorate and collapse for years after.
At 6:07 p.m. – the time of the blast five years ago – the few hundred gathered stood for a moment of silence.
“I’m here because I find it crazy that five years later, we still don’t know exactly what happened,” said Catherine Otayek, 30. “I had hope for answers in 2020. I didn’t think we’d still be here.”
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and world wide, enroll for breaking news alerts delivered on to you after they occur.
Although she didn’t lose anyone herself, the Lebanese expatriate living in France said she made it a degree to return to Beirut yearly for the commemoration as an obligation to fellow Lebanese.
The port blast got here nearly a yr into Lebanon’s catastrophic economic collapse, and was followed by a political crisis that paralyzed government and a devastating war between Hezbollah and Israel starting in 2023.
The blast is assumed to have been set off by a fireplace at a warehouse on the evening of August 4, 2020, detonating lots of of tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
Lebanese officials promised on the time that an investigation into the blast’s root causes could be accomplished in five days.
But years of political interference stymied the probe, with judicial officials and then-ministers continually raising legal challenges against the investigating judges, effectively paralyzing the investigation.
Some Lebanese have drawn hope from pledges by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam – each of whom got here to power in the beginning of this yr – to prioritize justice for blast victims.
On Monday, Aoun pledged to carry those chargeable for the blast accountable, no matter their position or political affiliation. “Justice won’t die, and accountability will inevitably come,” he said.
The president and prime minister didn’t attend Monday’s commemoration.
Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation earlier this yr and has questioned several officials in recent months – but he has yet to issue a preliminary indictment, which many Lebanese were hoping for ahead of the fifth anniversary.
“We wish a preliminary indictment that’s complete and comprehensive,” said Paul Naggear, whose three-year-old daughter Alexandra was killed within the blast. “We wish to know who was purported to evacuate our neighborhoods, in order that we could get to the hospital, and so my daughter could have survived.”
Naggear and his wife Tracy have been amongst probably the most vocal advocates for accountability for the blast.
Rights groups have pressed for a full investigation that can establish the complete chain of responsibility.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Reina Wehbi, Amnesty International’s Lebanon campaigner.
“The families of those killed and injured within the Beirut explosion have waited an intolerable five years. They need to not be forced to endure one other yr of impunity.”