Beirut still hurts from his wounds

A child blowing pink soap bubbles next to the Mona Lisa armed with a grenade launcher have been left alone in a flat in the Christian neighborhood of Gemeize in Beirut.

Painted on the pair of walls that have survived the colossal explosion of August 4, they share a dwelling with piles of rubble and a void that recalls that their tenants, probably young artists, have not yet returned.

Five months have passed since a deposit of 2,750 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate exploded in the port of the Lebanese capital that took away half the city.

Anger prevails against a ruling class that has not been able to form a government since then.

Only the solidarity of its citizens serves as a balm for the scars that are as visible on the buildings as on their inhabitants.

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In an apartment a few meters away, Cocó woke up from a coma just two months ago.

Curled up in bed, she protects herself from the gaze of others under a blanket.

“She was extremely beautiful and she doesn't want anyone to see her like that,” her 22-year-old daughter Lara, with a degree in Marketing, apologizes to her.

Cocó, as they call Carmen Khoury, a 52-year-old housewife, cannot see herself in a mirror because the explosion has stolen both of her eyes.

It is his hands that tell him that he is missing half a nose and that he has a sunken skull.

You still can't get your bearings in your own home.

She is one of the more than 6,500 injured caused by the explosion.

Four of them are still in a coma.

The elderly neighbor who lived in the third is one of 205 fatalities.

And the families that inhabited the three floors below the seventh floor are among those 350,000 residents who have been displaced from their homes and have had to seek shelter in the homes of relatives.

The living room of the house smells new: the sofas, the tiles, the windows and the curtains have just been installed.

"It doesn't matter how new everything is if every time I look out the window I see all those half-ruined buildings that remind me of that day," says the young woman, pointing to a roof where several workers clear debris.

From the balcony you can also see the epicenter of the explosion, with the port turned into a huge mass of cement and metals yet to be removed.

"The government has done absolutely nothing," he says helplessly.

During the early days, a score of unknown young men swarmed through their house every day to help them get rid of the rubble, build the walls and wall up the windows.

It has been the tireless work of local NGOs that has managed to relieve the victims.

One of them, Grassroots, still maintains a tent next to a life-size nativity scene planted under the headquarters of the completely demolished Lebanon's power company.

Christmas decorations have brought some joy and light back to dark streets due to daily power outages.

Neighbors flock to this tent in search of boxes of food, diapers and clothes.

Several pictures hang between the pile of aid.

"They have been donated by students of Fine Arts so that the newly erected walls are not so bare and sad," says smiling Lina Saade, a 19-year-old volunteer.

The bad times have been primed with this Levantine country of 4.5 million inhabitants that is facing a triple crisis: health, economic and political-social.

On December 31, 3,507 new coronavirus infections and 13 deaths were registered.

Expats who have returned in droves for the holidays have brought with them the coveted dollars they spend in bars and clubs as the virus spreads.

In hospitals, four out of every five ICU beds are occupied.

Lebanon is also experiencing the worst economic crisis in its 100-year history: half of the population has fallen below the poverty line and every day fewer can afford to pay for health insurance in a country where 85% of health care falls on private hospitals.

Redoing their homes is another impossible challenge for many.

The swarming of cranes alternates with the sealing of buildings on the brink of collapse whose owners cannot afford the costs of reconstruction, but have hung promising signs from balconies with "We are going to stay" written in red.

Cocó's family has received 10 million Lebanese pounds from the army to rebuild the apartment they rent, he says.

An amount that on the black market is equivalent to 1,170 euros.

Laura, Cocó's sister, has printed slogans on masks that she distributes in the demonstrations that read: “August 4: we neither forget nor forgive”.

When the conversation turns to the day of the explosion, Cocó shakes his head and changes the subject.

"No one is going to be held accountable," she repeats, resigned to each time, assures her daughter.

The Government has closed in on the popular request that an international investigation be held and instead has opened an internal investigation for what has been described as "the largest non-nuclear explosion in the world."

The process came to a standstill last week after a judge indicted Acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers of negligence.

Both President Michel Aoun and Diab admitted having received a report 10 days before the explosion warning of the danger posed by the deposit of ammonium nitrate.

None of the defendants appeared to testify, while two former ministers have requested the change of judge before the Lebanese Supreme Court.

"The Lebanese social protest movement was born precisely because people have grown tired of the leaders not being accountable to anyone," says Nizar Saghieh, a lawyer and director of the NGO Legal Agenda, by phone.

The legal battle pits judges, NGOs like this one and a collective of Beirut lawyers against an alliance of politicians and the handful of co-opted judges who defend their immunity.

However, Saghieh emphasizes, this is a crucial moment to set a precedent against the impunity that politicians have arrogated to themselves for three decades.

As for the victims, the approval of a new law stipulates compensation for the families of the deceased and free medical treatment for the injured.

The former claim that they have not received a single pound.

The latter have to resort to NGOs or private insurance in the face of state laziness.

This is the case of Mirna Habbouch, 36 years old.

This employee of a beauty products import company that tragic day lost the vision in one eye and mobility in her right arm when the shock wave shook the car where she was traveling with her son Cris, one and a half years old.

The little boy suffered cuts on his head and face today dotted with scars.

She still has a whitish coating on her right pupil from which four crystals were removed.

Twice a week he goes to physical therapy sessions to regain mobility in his hand.

“I have started to write again!”, She tells euphoric.

It is the NGO Beirut 0408 [in reference to the date of the explosion] that contacted Habbouch to offer help.

They have raised about 30,500 euros from private donors with whom they help 18 victims who need rehabilitation, explains its founder Nael Smith in a telephone conversation and from Germany.

The state paid hospitalization costs up to a month after the explosion, says Habbouch.

His private insurance now refuses to pay for the next operation because he insists that the government has to take over.

At the Hôtel Dieu hospital in Beirut, a specialist guides Habbouch to exercise the tendons.

There, another 80 people are treated for free thanks to the NGO Happy Childhood, says the head of the Physiotherapy department, Mansour Dib.

"The most complex patients are those who come with brain trauma," he adds.

"Even if he sees me smiling, I feel dead inside," Habbouch sincere with watery eyes.

"I can't get rid of the smell of death, or the screams and cries, or the images of that day," he says.

"I live with fear," says someone who has since witnessed three other fires in the port.

Find peace in the sessions with a psychologist provided by another Lebanese association.

“I wanted my son never to go through what we went through in the civil war [1975-1990].

But he experienced something much worse in a single day ”, he stresses.

Despite everything, both Habbouch and Cocó give thanks for having survived the explosion and being able to continue fighting.

More than 150 days after the explosion, seven people remain missing.

They are port workers or fishermen who were working in the surroundings that day.

Their families do not have bodies to bury to close the duel, nor can they benefit from the planned compensation.

According to the lawyer Saghieh, they are legally considered absent persons and it will take 12 years until they can become victims and their children claim compensation.