Protesters Seize Lebanon Foreign Ministry After Deadly Blast

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published August 08, 2020 | 09:50 PM

Beirut, Aug 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Aug, 2020 ) :Lebanese protesters stormed the foreign ministry in Beirut on Saturday as anger exploded over a deadly blast that made hundreds of thousands homeless and shocked the world.

Thousands of demonstrators, some of them brandishing nooses, had descended on the city centre to vent their fury at politicians they blame for Tuesday's explosion, which levelled Beirut port and killed 158 people.

Demonstrators marched through streets ravaged by the blast, gathering in the central Martyrs' Square as their grief gave way to rage.

As security forces focused their attention on a tense demonstration a few hundred metres down the road, a group led by retired Lebanese army officers stormed the foreign ministry and declared it the "headquarters of the revolution".

"We are taking over the foreign ministry as a seat of the revolution," Sami Rammah, a retired officer, announced by loudspeaker from the ministry's front steps.

"We call on all the anguished Lebanese people to take to the streets to demand the prosecution of all the corrupt," appealing to the international community to boycott the government.

Elsewhere, police fired tear gas to disperse groups of young men hurling stones and seeking to push towards parliament.

Two days after a landmark visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, activity was growing to drum up international support for the disaster-hit country ahead of a Sunday virtual aid conference.

For the fourth day running, Beirut woke to the sound of broken glass being swept on the streets, its inhabitants taking stock after one of the biggest blasts of its kind in recent history.

A fire at the port on Tuesday ignited a stock of ammonium nitrate, triggering an explosion that was felt as far away as Cyprus and destroyed entire neighbourhoods.

It was widely perceived as a direct consequence of corruption and incompetence, perhaps the most egregious case of callousness on the part of a ruling elite that was already reviled.