Lebanon: Beirut tries to heal the wounds of the explosions of August 4

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

Lebanon has been plunged for months into an unprecedented economic crisis, against a backdrop of political deadlock. This picture darkened even more with the terrible explosions of August 4 in the port of Beirut. On Thursday August 27, the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, came to pledge the support of her organization.

Publicity

With our special correspondent in Beirut, Nicolas Falez

"  The risk today is the disappearance of Lebanon  ", recalled Jean-Yves le Drian, on RTL Thursday, August 27. The French Foreign Minister once again called for the formation of a government and reforms in a country in great suffering. At the port of Beirut, tangles of scrap metal and concrete are a reminder of how the place was ravaged by the explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate on August 4. At least 180 people have died in the capital.

►Also read: Lebanon, a country on its knees

UNESCO promises to help shattered education system

In the surrounding neighborhoods, the damage is spectacular, especially in this public school number 3 in the Achrafieh district, which an official delegation visited on Thursday, August 27. The Director-General of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), Audrey Azoulay, crossed the courtyard still littered with glass, before going up to the floors where doors torn off and sunken walls leave appear classrooms in a sorry state. On the blackboard, sentences in Arabic: the words of the teachers withstood the blast of the explosion, but it will take time and significant work for students to be able to sit at their desks again.

A total of 159 public and private schools are damaged or destroyed in Beirut, affecting 85,000 children. The damage is estimated at at least 22 million dollars. "  It is through school and only through school that a nation is built and the future of a country like Lebanon, like all the others,  " recalled Audrey Azoulay, addressing the journalists on the roof. of the school, with the devastated port as a backdrop.

@UNESCO is mobilizing for education in #Beirut - 160 schools to rehabilitate, more than 80,000 students to support. The needs are immense for distance education. We need you !
https://t.co/4cF1F3sd0Z pic.twitter.com/8lF2aDnz1r

UNESCO will now try to bring together aid qualified as "  considerable  " to support the school system but also the damaged cultural heritage in Beirut. International conferences will be organized on this theme in the coming weeks, knowing that the Lebanese education system was already weakened by the economic crisis and by the Covid-19 epidemic, which strikes here as elsewhere.

“ We did the work of the state ! "

The international community is mobilizing for Lebanon, but many people in Beirut are still active in the streets of their city these days. This is particularly the case in the districts of Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael, where groups of Lebanese, generally young, are getting organized to offer mutual aid. The NGO Beitna Beitak (“  Our house is your house  ”) repairs windows and doors. Other groups collect donations, procure food, deliver food packages.

Most of these groups existed before August 4, and in recent months these volunteers have been demonstrating against their leaders. "  Now everyone is helping, but in a month, winter is coming  ", projects a resident of Beirut, who spends her days in the tent village where these volunteers are gathered. “  We did the work of the state ,” she exclaims. The day after the explosion, we were in the street clearing and taking care of people and the security forces were watching us.  "

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• Lebanon
• Economic crisis

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