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Decades on, War-Scarred Beirut Buildings Remain

Graffiti by Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada depicting a boy is painted on a bullet riddled building on the former frontline of Lebanese civil war in downtown Beirut. (AP)
Graffiti by Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada depicting a boy is painted on a bullet riddled building on the former frontline of Lebanese civil war in downtown Beirut. (AP)
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Decades on, War-Scarred Beirut Buildings Remain

Graffiti by Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada depicting a boy is painted on a bullet riddled building on the former frontline of Lebanese civil war in downtown Beirut. (AP)
Graffiti by Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada depicting a boy is painted on a bullet riddled building on the former frontline of Lebanese civil war in downtown Beirut. (AP)

They are a common sight around Beirut, but their presence barely registers with Lebanese citizens anymore.

Nearly 30 years after civil war guns fell silent, dozens of bullet-scarred, shell-pocked buildings are still standing — testimony to a brutal conflict that raged for 15 years and took the lives of 150,000 people, said an Associated Press report Friday.

Some are Beirut landmarks, like the iconic Holiday Inn, a hulking, bullet-riddled blue and white building that towers over the capital.

The hotel, which opened for business just two years before the war broke out on April 13, 1975, was destroyed early on during battles between rival factions and used as a sniper's nest. It has stood deserted and untouched since then, its shareholders locked in a dispute over its future.

There's the modernist movie theater that never was, nicknamed locally "The Egg." Its moldy skeleton stands as a ruin, its future unclear. Like the Holiday Inn, it is a curious attraction for visiting foreigners.

There are also a few remaining residential buildings located along the former Green Line, which separated the mainly Muslim part of West Beirut from the predominantly Christian part, their ravaged facades a testimony to the horrors witnessed many years ago. They still stand, either because their owners have no money to fix them, or because of disputes over ownership.

"Seeing these buildings is like being slapped in the face," said Sahar Mandour, a Lebanese journalist and a writer. "You're walking around going about your daily business when suddenly you come face to face with a scene that takes you back to the old days."

Unlike others who dislike the sight of these buildings and think they should be demolished, Mandour, 42, says it's important that they stay for the nation's collective memory, to never forget a war that pitted Palestinians against Lebanese, Christians against Muslims, Christians against Christians and every other combination possible. Israel also stepped in, adding to the destruction, said the AP.

"For a foreigner, it is a destroyed building. For us, it is a painful reminder of the bullets that pierced our bodies, streets and walls," Mandour says. "I don't want these buildings to disappear, their mission is not over yet."

Not everyone feels the same. A woman who rents an apartment in a bullet-scarred building on the former Green Line between the mainly Muslim Shiyah and Christian Ayn el Rummaneh districts, said she worries about her two sons and society judging them for where they live.

She keeps plants on the veranda and on the stairs to compensate for the building's grim facade.

"If I had somewhere else to go, I would," she said, identifying herself by her nickname, Imm Lebnen, or mother of Lebanon.

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Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
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Rubble and Grief: Morocco’s High Atlas Marks One Year Since Record Earthquake

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns - The AP

The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.

A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco's High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N'tala, where dozens of residents died after a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.

Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.

The region shaken by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N’tala, accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the first anniversary.

In some places, residents who say they're awaiting governmental action have begun reconstructing buildings on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.

Streets have been neatly swept in towns like Amizmiz and Moulay Brahim, although cracked buildings and piles of rubble remain, much as they were in the days after the quake.

The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns, where rebuilding efforts on roads, homes, schools and businesses are underway and some residents have been provided metal container homes. But many of those displaced from the more than 55,000 homes destroyed by the temblor remain vulnerable to summer’s heat and winter’s cold, living in plastic tents, impatient to return.

Mohamed Soumer, a 69-year-old retiree who lost his son in last year's earthquake, is angry because local authorities have forbidden him from rebuilding his home on the same steep mountainside due to safety concerns. He now spends his days with his wife in a plastic tent near his now-rubbled home and fears moving elsewhere and restarting his life in a larger, more expensive area.

“Residents want to stay here because they have land where they grow vegetables to make a living,” he said. “If they go somewhere else and abandon this place, they will not be able to live there.”

The government early on promised households monthly stipends in the aftermath of the earthquake and additional funds for seismically safe reconstruction. It said last week that both had been provided to the majority of eligible families and households.

“Specific solutions are being deployed on the ground for difficult cases,” Morocco's Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

But on the ground, its disbursal has been uneven, residents say, with many still waiting for funds or reconstruction to commence.

Anger has mounted against local authorities in towns like Amizmiz and villages like Talat N'Yaqoub, where residents have protested against their living conditions. They have criticized the slow pace of reconstruction and demanded more investment in social services and infrastructure, which has long gone neglected in contrast with Morocco's urban centers and coastline.

Officials have said rebuilding will cost 120 billion dirhams ($12 billion) and take about five years. The government has rebuilt some stretches of rural roads, health centers and schools but last week the commission tasked with reconstruction acknowledged the need to speed up some home rebuilding.