At a wall adjacent to the destroyed port of Beirut, Abeer Ibrahim stands with her sister Wafa, who is sitting on the ground exhausted, waiting for news about her husband, Amin Zahid (43 years), after he became missing after the big explosion that struck the port and rocked Beirut last Tuesday.
Wafa was unable to speak, and she barely wiped her face and head with water for fear of her absence from consciousness. Her sister told Al-Jazeera Net, "Amin has been working at the port for years as a trainer in driving trucks and cranes."
Amin is the father of a 16-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy who was at the port at the moment of the explosion. As soon as his family heard the news of the explosion, they immediately rushed to call him.
"His line was out of coverage, so his wife collapsed and she thought something bad happened to him. An hour later, we all went to Beirut hospitals for him, without finding him, and we learned later that he was missing under the rubble of the port. Two days ago, we started coming from dawn until midnight to stand up," Abeer continues. In front of the port gate, waiting for any news about him that comes from the rescue teams. "
At the outskirts of the Beirut port, around which the army has struck a security cordon, a number of relatives of the missing people stand, after dozens of dead employees, customs agents and others working in its vicinity or those who were passing their cars there were killed inside it.
A few meters away from Wafa and Abeer, Ghalib Hatoum walks back and forth, then turns anger around himself, as he waits for news about his cousin and his old friend, as Imad Zahreddine describes it.
He tells Al-Jazeera Net, "I came with Imad's wife and sister to spread the ground waiting for news of his fate under the rubble of the port." He cries. "Nobody knows Imad in the port but loves him."
Imad, 45, worked as an employee guarding the port 24 hours a day, then took two days off. Ghalib recounts the last moments by communicating with Imad before the big explosion, "Moments before the second big explosion, Imad was in the first explosion running towards the fire, filming him and talking via video, and saying screaming: Fire is a fire, then suddenly he disappeared, and communication with him was completely cut off the moment the second explosion occurred." .
Most accuses the authorities of negligence and not rushing to search for the missing under the rubble. He continues angrily, "We sit here like watchmen, and no official body contacts us to reassure and support us, and we are waiting for our information to be taken from the civil defense only, whose members have compassion on us, and we will not return to our homes until we know the fate of our missing."
Opposite Ghaleb, Elias Tonius Maalouf sits on the sidewalk, crying as he bows his head, which was invaded by gray. He opens his phone, and points his finger to the picture of his son, George (32 years), to ask in contempt, "What is forbidden for this sweet young man who is lost and lost ?!" He told Al-Jazeera Net, "My son has been working in the security intelligence inside the port for 12 years, and we have been attending his wedding at the end of this year. We did not find him in all Beirut hospitals, and yesterday I took a DNA test to facilitate the process of finding him, and I lost hope of his survival." ".
The great tragedy in the Beirut Port explosion injured a squad from the Beirut Fire Brigade, affiliated to the Capital Police Operations Room, after a fire truck and an ambulance squad from the regiment entered the port before the second explosion occurred to extinguish the fire.
The death of all civil defense personnel who entered the port of Beirut to put out the first fire before the second explosion occurred. May God have mercy on them. # Reply_Beautiful pic.twitter.com/WSJKRrt8m7
- Zainb Altamimi (@AltamimiZainb) August 5, 2020
There were ten volunteers on board who are still missing, and the body of one of the volunteers who had gone to her town in the Bekaa was found, while the search for her colleagues continues without finding any trace of the regiment's cars.
On the other hand, pages were created on electronic applications, such as the "LOCATING VICTIMS" page on the Instagram application, and pictures of about 100 missing persons of different nationalities were posted, and they were attached to their families' phone numbers to communicate with them in case any news about them became known.
More than 60 people are still missing on Saturday, four days after the huge explosion that struck the port of Beirut and killed more than 150 people, according to what the Ministry of Health confirmed to Agence France-Presse.
The explosion killed more than 150 people, including 25 unidentified people, according to the same source. The number of wounded exceeded 5,000, 120 of them in critical condition.