4 years ago
Lebanese riot police fired tear gas at demonstrators trying to break through a barrier to get to the parliament building in Beirut on Saturday and shots were heard as protests over this week’s devastating explosion grew.
Dozens of protesters broke into the foreign ministry where they burnt a framed portrait of President Michel Aoun, representative for many of a political class that has ruled Lebanon for decades and which they say is to blame for its deep political and economic crises.
Thousands gathered in Martyrs’ Square in the city centre, some throwing stones. Police fired tear gas when some protesters tried to break through the barrier blocking a street leading to parliament, a Reuters journalist said.
Police confirmed shots had been fired. It was not immediately clear by or at whom.
The protesters chanted “the people want the fall of the regime”, a popular chant during the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, and “Revolution, Revolution”. They held posters saying “Leave, you are all killers”.
Soldiers in vehicles mounted with machine guns patrolled the area amid the clashes.
Tuesday’s blast, the biggest in Beirut’s history, killed 158 people and wounded 6,000, the health ministry said. Twenty-one people were still reported as missing.
The government has promised to hold those responsible to account. But few Lebanese are convinced. Some set up nooses on wooden frames as a warning to Lebanese leaders.“Resign or hang,” said a placard.
Riot police fired dozens of tear gas canisters at protesters who set a fire and hurled stones.
Some residents, struggling to clean up shattered homes, complained that the government they see as corrupt - there had been months of protests against its handling of a deep economic crisis before this week’s disaster - had let them down again.
Several people said they were not surprised that French President Emmanuel Macron had visited this week while Lebanese leaders had not.
Lebanon’s Kataeb Party, a Christian group that opposes the government backed by the Iran-aligned Hezbollah, announced on Saturday the resignation of its three lawmakers from parliament.
Macron promised angry crowds that aid to rebuild Beirut would not fall into “corrupt hands”. He will host a donor conference for Lebanon via video-link on Sunday.
Macron told U.S. President Donald Trump that U.S. sanctions targeting Hezbollah are playing into the hands of those they are meant to weaken, an Elysee official said. The United States should “reinvest” in Lebanon to help rebuild it instead.
The Lebanese prime minister and presidency have said 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, which is used in making fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years without safety measures at the port warehouse.
President Aoun said on Friday an investigation would examine whether the blast was caused by a bomb or other external interference, negligence or an accident. Twenty people had been detained so far, he added.
