BEIRUT — Anger and grief collided in a crowded Beirut hospital
Sunday as relatives of burn victims from a fuel tanker explosion in north
Lebanon waited breathlessly for news of loved ones.
اضافة اعلان
Geitawi hospital, which has one of the country's two burn centers, saw an
influx of patients injured in the overnight blast that killed at least 28
people in the Akkar district village of Al-Tleil.
Dozens of people had flocked to the village to get fuel, a scarce and
increasingly costly resource the army was distributing after confiscating it in
efforts to combat stockpiling by distributors.
The official National News Agency said the explosion followed scuffles
between residents clamoring to get some fuel, but the exact cause of the blast
remains unclear.
The burns unit in Beirut, some 80km south of the blast site, was seen as a
last hope for families turned away from overstretched medical facilities in the
north.
Sawsan Abdullah tracked down her son, a soldier, as he was transferred from
one hospital to another for treatment after being caught up in the explosion.
She burst into tears at Geitawi hospital when a doctor informed her that her
son was in a critical condition.
"You told me he was okay! I want to see him, I only have him, he's my
only son!" she yelled, falling to the floor as relatives rushed to help
her.
Speaking to AFP afterwards, she said her son had only been looking for
fuel so he could go to his work in the army.
'A failed state'
"We live in a failed state, which loves neither its people, nor its
soldiers," said Sawsan, whose husband, also a soldier, died in clashes
with an Islamist group in north Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon is grappling with an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as
one of the planet's worst in modern times and has been hit by severe fuel
shortages since the start of summer.
These have aggravated power cuts which now last more than 22 hours a day,
threatening hospitals and businesses with closure.
Sawsan's 26-year-old daughter Sandy blamed the country's leaders for
negligence that led to her brother ending up in hospital.
"He is my only brother, my only support ... I have already been denied
a father since I was five," she said.
At the entrance to the hospital's emergency room, doctors, nurses, and even
police tried to restrain relatives clamoring to enter.
One man in military fatigues was searching for his brother-in-law, who was
still missing in the wake of the blast.
"What am I going to tell my sister?" he yelled.
Another person waiting at the hospital cried: "There are people who
have lost two of three relatives."
Marwa Al-Sheikh, 33, had two male relatives caught up in the explosion.
Her brother was being treated for burns in Geitawi, but her brother-in-law,
a retired army officer, was still missing.
She could barely hold back her tears.
"My brother-in-law has four children, the eldest is only five years
old. We don't know if he's dead or if he's still alive," she said.
'My son is burning'
Marwa said some bodies had been charred beyond recognition, so relatives
could not determine whether he was among the dead.
"We'll have to wait for DNA tests," she told AFP.
The latest tragedy drew inevitable comparisons to last summer's monster
explosion at Beirut port that killed more than 200 people and devastated
swathes of the capital.
On August 4, 2020, a stock of carelessly stored ammonium nitrate fertilizer
exploded in one of the world's largest non-nuclear blasts.
Authorities from customs and port officials to senior members of parliament
and government had all been accused of being aware of the threat from the cache
but had failed to take action.
On Sunday, Geitawi hospital director Pierre Yared said the state was
completely absent in the aftermath of the Akkar blast.
"The authorities are not responding to our complaints ... the hospitals
are in critical condition, we lack everything," he said.
Uday Khodr, another soldier, ended up in Geitawi after being taken to three
other facilities that were unable to treat him. He was badly burned in the
blast.
His father Mamdouh waited anxiously in the emergency room for news.
"My son paid a heavy cost for the scarcity of fuel," he
said.
"Where is the country going? Why can't we live comfortably?"
Mamdouh blamed Lebanon's leaders for what had happened.
"My son is burning while they destroy this country. I hope their hearts
burn too."
Read more
Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
