Beirut: One Year after the Explosion Help Still Needed

Bejrut rok po wybuchu wciąż potrzebuje pomocy, fot. episkopat.pl

Witnesses recall a strange din, voices raised in the streets, and then the roar of the explosion. And a powerful blast that demolished houses close to the port and, in those further away, broke the windows, ripped doors from their frames, and smashed household appliances against the walls. The Lebanese capital still remains unable to recover from the tragedy of 4 August 2020. Caritas Poland is helping people who have lost their possessions and can barely make ends meet.

Ishak Raja, a Sudanese man who has lived in Lebanon for 10 years, was just entering his home with his eldest son Mazen. They had just crossed the threshold when shards of glass splashed around them.

“I grabbed my son, and we hid behind the doorframe. There was also a girl there that the family had forgotten about, I grabbed them both. Luckily, we were already inside, if we had been standing outside at the time, all the glass would have fallen on us. The bathroom door, the toilet seat, the TV—everything was shattered. We gathered up the broken glass, all the windows in the entire building were blown out,” he recalls.

Not everyone was so lucky. Last year’s chemical explosion in the port killed over 200 people, thousands were injured, and tens of thousands became homeless. The devastating explosion in the capital was yet another blow to a country that had been in a political and economic crisis for years, still feeling the effects of the 1975 civil war and the subsequent conflicts.

Another Year

“Another year, and Lebanon is in flames” sang the punk rock band KSU over two decades ago. Today, there is no fighting in the streets of Beirut, but the residents’ situation is getting worse every year. According to the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (UN ESCWA), the number of poor Lebanese is growing. In 2018, it was almost 30% of the population, in 2019 45%, and now already 55%, that is, over half of Lebanon’s population lives in poverty. At the same time, unemployment has reached nearly 50%, and even those who have a fixed income are struggling to pay their current living expenses. According to the World Bank, the Lebanese pound has lost 90% of its value over the past year. A salary is not even enough to buy the most necessary items, including medicine and food. As many as 77% of Lebanese families say they have no money for food, and 60% borrow money for food or buy on credit. The price of food has increased by 400% (UNICEF data).

“The country lacks medicine, has no electricity, and fuel is rationed. Power outages have become a daily occurrence. It is unusual to have electricity for even just two or three hours a day,” says Dominik Derlicki, a representative of Caritas Polska in Beirut. “In the capital and other big cities people pay a lot to plug into private generators in stores or blocks of flats to survive. However, the generators are functioning less and less frequently because there is not enough fuel, allotted at selected gas stations, to run them. It is impossible to drive through Beirut when fuel is on sale because kilometers-long queues have been forming at the stations since morning. There are even fights between desperate drivers, despite the fact that stations are often secured by the police and the army.

Poles Are Helping

Were it not for international aid, many of Beirut’s residents would still be vegetating without a roof over their heads and without anything to put into the pot. Caritas helped Ishak Raja to restore order in his house after the explosion.

“They painted the walls and installed a toilet. I have received support from Caritas three times, each time for 800 thousand Lebanese pounds.”

Caritas Poland, thanks to the generosity of Polish donors, began helping Beirut immediately after last year’s tragedy.

“Our activities are multidirectional. They include four humanitarian transports organized in cooperation with the Polish Army, with a total of 20 tons of cargo: food, cleaning supplies, COVID-19 protection products, 100 oxygen concentrators,” says Sylwia Hazboun, head of the Middle East department at Caritas Polska. “We have also joined in the reconstruction programs. One of them is the project Building Back Beirut, which is directly aimed at the local population and includes financial support to carry out the necessary repairs and renovations, emergency cash assistance for the most vulnerable households or for those who lost valuable property in the explosion, as well as psychological support for people experiencing trauma. We are also co-funding the renovation of a complex of social buildings to provide decent living conditions for the poor and to create opportunities for the Syrian refugees and Lebanese who need work to earn money for the renovation,” he adds.

Family to Family in Beirut

An important component of the Polish assistance is the extension of the Family-to-Family Program to 133 Lebanese families starting this year. Participation in the program provides the beneficiaries with regular financial support. The received funds, transferred by the Polish families, can, for example, be used by the Lebanese to buy food and medicine or to pay their rent. This form of assistance is perfectly suited to local needs. For Therese Halaby, an unattached 60-year-old sick woman, the extra money is a blessing, especially with the rising prices of medicines.

“The medication for my hearing used to cost £33, then £70, and now it costs £166. What if it gets even more expensive?” she wonders. “Once I was deaf for two weeks. I couldn’t hear anything, not even the telephone. It was terrible, I didn’t know what to do.”

Thanks to the help of Caritas, Therese does not have to worry about running out of money for medicines. The woman is grateful to the organization and the donors who make it possible for her to receive support.

“God bless [Caritas]! May God give it the strength to continue helping. Thanks to you, I didn’t have to choose between honesty and survival,” says Therese.

Fr. Marcin Iżycki, director of Caritas Poland, emphasizes that we do not know on a daily basis the reality of life in places where meeting one’s basic needs is a problem.

“Such sad anniversaries, that of the explosion in Beirut, direct our thoughts and prayers towards them; they are an opportunity to stop running and to look at their problems. We will not solve all the problems, but we can make the lives of these people more bearable,” Fr. Iżycki recalls, in an appeal for support for the Family-to-Family program, which benefits the needy inhabitants of Beirut as well as those of Syria, the Gaza Strip, and Iraqi Kurdistan.

source: Press Office of the Polish Bishops’Conference

How to Help?

– By donating through the website rodzinarodzinie.caritas.pl

– By sending a donation to the account 36 1160 2202 0000 0003 2318 7181 (title of the donation: Rodzina Rodzinie Syria)

– By sending a donation to the account 77 1160 2202 0000 0000 3436 4384 (title of the donation: Family of Gaza/Iraq/Lebanon)

– By sending a text message with the word FAMILY to 72052 (cost: PLN 2.46).

Materials for download:

– Videos – stories of three families affected by last year’s explosion in Beirut (videos with transcriptions) and a statement by Dominik Derlicki, representative of Caritas Poland in Beirut: https://we.tl/t-bMYs5NH8hw

– Spot of the Family-to-Family program: https://we.tl/t-ob1PxXwefx