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Chaos, Confusion Obstruct Distribution of Compensation for Beirut Port Explosion Victims

A man works inside a school which was damaged due to the explosion at the port area, in Beirut. (Reuters)
A man works inside a school which was damaged due to the explosion at the port area, in Beirut. (Reuters)
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Chaos, Confusion Obstruct Distribution of Compensation for Beirut Port Explosion Victims

A man works inside a school which was damaged due to the explosion at the port area, in Beirut. (Reuters)
A man works inside a school which was damaged due to the explosion at the port area, in Beirut. (Reuters)

More than three months after the Beirut Port explosion, the affected residents in the surrounding areas are complaining that they have not received any compensation from the state to help them repair their houses.

While many resorted to charities and NGOs offering assistance, others starting fixing their homes at their own expense ahead of winter.

The Lebanese army has recently began distributing compensation from the state, within a specific framework, said Brigadier General Sami Howayek from the Joint Operations for Disaster Recovery Command Center.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Howayek revealed that the army “started distributing financial compensation about a week ago, which will cover about 10,000 housing units, equivalent to approximately 17 percent of the number of damaged units.”

He explained that a survey of the affected areas determined the number of damaged units at 62,087 houses, 14,848 stores and 5,251 commercial companies, in addition to a number of educational institutions, places of worship, hotels, restaurants and others.

According to Howayek, the total value of compensation earmarked to those affected by the Aug. 4 explosion amounts to 100 billion Lebanese pounds (66 million dollars according to the official exchange rate, and a little more than a million at the parallel market rate).

The amount was transferred from the High Relief Commission to the Army Treasury, based on the decision of caretaker Prime Hassan Diab.

He added that army teams would conduct field visits to inspect the repair works.

Meanwhile, a number of citizens, whose houses were damaged by the explosion, are complaining about the large number of associations and agencies that visited them to assess the damage, without these associations returning to compensate for their losses.

“Some bodies, including international associations and organizations, recently started repairing a number of damaged homes and paying sums of money to the citizens,” Howayek said.

He emphasized that the army, through its constant contact with the associations, was seeking to “control their work as much as possible,” and was also asking citizens to “inform them of any suspected association to pursue it according to the laws in force, especially if it was not registered with the Ministry of Interior.”

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Mass Graves Become Last Resort for Syrians Searching for Missing Loved Ones

People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
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Mass Graves Become Last Resort for Syrians Searching for Missing Loved Ones

People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)
People searching for bodies in a trench believed to be a mass grave on the outskirts of Damascus in December (AFP)

At 80, Syrian Abdel Rahman Athab still holds on to hope of finding his son, missing for 11 years. He searched tirelessly—watching former detainees leave prisons, combing through hospitals, and finally, visiting suspected mass grave sites. Despite losing three other children, Athab clings to the hope of finding his son or at least laying him to rest.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that since 2011, about 136,614 people have been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained. Of these, over 113,000 remain missing, leaving families in heartbreaking uncertainty.

The pain of Athab’s family began with the start of Syria’s revolutionary unrest. The father, who had six sons and two daughters, recalls with deep sorrow: “Four were engineers, and two were teachers. At the onset of the revolution, they joined protests against the regime, and I stood with them.”

By late 2011, three of his sons were killed, their bodies returned in disfigured remains wrapped in black bags. Athab buried them, held a mourning service, and, though devastated, accepted their deaths, seeing them as martyrs for Syria. “I found comfort knowing they were in a safer place,” he said.

However, just two years after losing his sons, Athab’s fourth child disappeared in Damascus. The remaining members of his family fled the country, leaving the father’s heartache to grow even deeper.

In his ongoing search for his missing son, Athab told Asharq Al-Awsat that he and his family have been tracing newly uncovered mass grave sites across Syria in the past month.

On January 4, local Syrian outlets reported that residents found a mass grave near the Ninth Division in the town of Sanamayn, located in the northern countryside of Daraa in southern Syria.

This discovery followed another mass grave found about two weeks earlier at “Al-Kuwaiti Farm” on the outskirts of central Daraa.

The area had been under the control of a militia linked to the military intelligence branch, and 31 bodies, including those of women and a child, were recovered.

Additionally, a team from Human Rights Watch reported visiting a site in the al-Tadamon neighborhood of southern Damascus on December 11 and 12, 2024.

They found a large number of human remains at the location of a massacre that took place in April 2013, with more scattered around the surrounding area.