Middle East Desk
Report
BEIRUT: French President Emmanuel Macron called for urgent support for Lebanon where he arrived on Thursday, two days after a devastating blast ripped through Beirut, killing 145 people and generating a seismic shock that was felt across the region.
Dozens are still missing after Tuesday’s blast at the port that injured 5,000 people and left up to a quarter of a million without homes fit to live in, hammering a nation already reeling from economic meltdown and a surge in coronavirus cases. A security source said the death toll had reached 145, and officials said the figure was likely to rise. Macron, making the first visit by a foreign leader since the explosion, promised to help organise international aid but said Lebanon’s government must implement economic reforms and crack down on corruption.
“If reforms are not carried out, Lebanon will continue to sink,” Macron said after being met at the airport by Lebanese President Michel Aoun. “What is also needed here is political change. This explosion should be the start of a new era.”
Wearing a black tie in mourning, Macron toured the blast site and Beirut’s shattered streets where angry crowds demanded an end to a “regime” of Lebanese politicians they blame for corruption and dragging Lebanon into disaster.
“I see the emotion on your face, the sadness, the pain. This is why I’m here,” Macron told one group, promising to deliver “home truths” to Lebanon’s leaders.
The government’s failure to tackle a runaway budget, mounting debt and endemic corruption has prompted Western donors to demand reform. Gulf Arab states who once helped Lebanon have baulked at bailing out a nation they say is increasingly influenced by their rival Iran and its local ally Hezbollah.
One man on the street told Macron, “We hope this aid will go to the Lebanese people not the corrupt leaders.” Another said that, while a French president had taken time to visit them, Lebanon’s president had not.
At the port, destroyed by Tuesday’s giant mushroom cloud and fireball, families sought news about the missing, amid mounting public anger at the authorities for allowing huge quantities of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, used in making fertilisers and bombs, to be stored there for years in unsafe conditions. The government has ordered some port officials be put under house arrest and promised a full investigation.
