Forty-three years ago today, the Lebanese Civil War broke out. It destroyed Lebanon and left approximately 120,000 people dead. The ghost of the civil war is still haunting Lebanon since 17,000 people are still missing. No one knows what happened to them and the government hasn’t taken necessary steps to clarify their fates. It hurts on both sides: those who are still missing might be living in horrendous conditions while their loved ones cannot do anything about it. This is exactly what thousands of Lebanese families have been going through for decades. The International Red Cross Committee (ICRC) has been present in Lebanon for 50 years, and it has helped a lot of civilians during the Lebanese civil war. It also started many
to raise awareness about the missing Lebanese citizens. Today, the ICRC launched a campaign called Absence/Presence to call on the authorities to pass a law about the missing people during the civil war. The video shows people voting for a missing family member. The committee also spread mock election posters showing five different missing persons. Once you find one of those posters, scan the QR code and read about the person’s disappearance. These families have the right to know about the fates of their loved ones. They have been waiting for many years, but that doesn’t mean that their pain is gone. With every day that goes by, they wonder what life would have been like if their son, sister, or parent didn’t go missing. We as a community should stand along with these families whose sufferings did not end when the civil war ended.
Related: Lebanese Adoptees From The Civil War Are Trying To Reconnect With Their Biological Families