Beirut Port Explosion: 3 Years On, Victims’ Families Push for International Justice
With the investigation into the Beirut port explosion that killed at least 218 people stymied inside Lebanon, organizations and relatives of victims are turning to the world to obtain accountability and end Lebanon’s “culture of impunity”
The first thing visitors to Lebanese artist Hatem Imam’s exhibition notice is the buzzing. As they walk through the dark network of passageways in Beirut’s iconic Metro Al Madina Theater and pause to look at Imam’s colorful landscapes, visitors cannot help but notice the constant buzz in the background. With an ear placed close to a canvas, the buzzing grows louder.
Visitors walk away with the sense that they have not just seen an exhibition but have had a sensory experience. That feeling is only amplified after speaking with Annie Vartivarian and her daughter Mariana Fodoulian, who together are behind Art Design Lebanon, the traveling gallery that put on the exhibition, and the nonprofit organization that it supports.
Vartivarian was a long-time art patron and gallerist. Fodoulian is a veterinarian. Their lives changed on August 4, 2020, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate improperly stored at the busy Beirut port exploded, killing at least 218 people, among them their daughter and sister Gaia Fodoulian.
“I wanted to keep her memory alive, her name alive,” Vartivarian told The Media Line. Gaia had been working on a project to bring art to unconventional spaces. Vartivarian set out to realize her daughter’s dream by opening Art Design Lebanon. Gaia also had a passion for animals, and her sister took up that cause, co-founding and directing the Gaia Fodoulian Association, which supports stray animals. All profits raised through Art Design Lebanon go to the Gaia Fodoulian Association.
A painting exhibited in the Art Design Lebanon traveling gallery. (Andrea López-Tomàs/The Media Line)
Although the mother and daughter have found meaning after the tragedy, they are still preoccupied with the injustice of the explosion and its aftermath.
We need change. In my 33 years of life, I have not seen anyone who has been punished for their crimes or any justice served in my country.
“We need change,” Fodoulian told The Media Line. “In my 33 years of life, I have not seen anyone who has been punished for their crimes or any justice served in my country.”
Indeed, three years after one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history, no one has been punished. The domestic investigation into the explosion has been blocked since December 2021.
In February 2021, Judge Tarek Bitar was tasked with investigating the explosion. Soon afterward, legal actions were initiated against Bitar by political figures, forcing an end to the investigation. When Bitar reopened the investigation in January 2023, chief prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat immediately filed charges against him and ordered the release of all suspects related to the case.
Ruins in Mar Mikhael neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon. (Andrea López-Tomàs/The Media Line)
Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line that the suspension of the investigation was politically motivated.
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“Those who are actually accused of having culpability and responsibility for the blast have used loopholes in the Lebanese legal system to go after the judge and to undermine the ability of the investigation to go forward, even though the claims that they have raised against the judge are without merit,” she said.
Such a culture of impunity is nothing new for Lebanon, Fakih said. Since the Lebanese Civil War of 1975 to 1990, “serious crimes, including war crimes … have not been prosecuted and those responsible have not been held accountable,” she said.
Given Lebanon’s track record, relatives of victims and humanitarian organizations are turning to the international community in the hope of getting the domestic investigation restarted. Human Rights Watch has been urging the UN Human Rights Council to establish a fact-finding mechanism into the events of August 4, 2020, Fakih said.
How can we obtain justice in Lebanon if the judicial power is muzzled?
Intervention by the United Nations would ensure the preservation of evidence, which could also be used in legal proceedings within Lebanon.
Swiss-Lebanese lawyer Zena Wakim, from the Swiss anti-corruption foundation Accountability Now, told The Media Line that obtaining international support for the cause is crucial.
“How can we obtain justice in Lebanon if the judicial power is muzzled?” she asked.
Wakim’s group of volunteer lawyers has assisted victims in filing a lawsuit against the US-Norwegian geophysical services group TGS, a subsidiary of which chartered a ship that allegedly brought the ammonium nitrate to Beirut.
“Legal procedures have been totally sabotaged in Lebanon and are suspended, so we have to find ingenious ways to circumvent the judiciary in the country,” Wakim said.
Similar suits around the world have seen some success. Last June, the British judiciary ordered a chemical trading company registered in the United Kingdom to pay around $1 million in damages to the families of the victims. The company, Savaro Ltd., was found liable for ordering the shipment of the ammonium nitrate.
Electricity building destroyed by the Beirut Port explosion. (Andrea López-Tomàs/The Media Line)
Fodoulian and Vartivarian have already met with several members of the European Parliament to urge sanctions against Lebanese politicians who are interfering in the judicial process.
All of Vartivarian’s family has left Lebanon for the United States, but she is intent on staying for Gaia.
“A mother should be with her children,” she said.
She is proud to have realized her late daughter’s dream.
“That day, I lost my daughter, my friend, my colleague, my everything,” she said. “As long as we remember them, they are alive among us, their memories will live on, so it’s like lighting a candle for them.”
Fodoulian, too, is intent on keeping a fire burning for her sister.
“Maybe we will work for a decade to get this justice, but we will do it, so maybe we will stop calling them victims and they will be, rather, the martyrs for change here in Lebanon,” she said.
Ruins in the Gemmayze neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon. (Andrea López-Tomàs/The Media Line)
