Father’s Day this year was a painful day for the families of the Beirut blast victims who could only remember their fathers in memory.
It was the first Father’s Day following the Beirut blast, which claimed the lives of over 200 people.
In this picture, the daughters of Joe Andon, an employee of the grain silos at the Beirut Port, celebrated Father’s Day at the site of the blast where their father perished. The little girls will have to grow up with the difficult consequences of being fatherless.
Joe’s daughters are like many children who lost their fathers to the explosion.
People remembered a father named Ali, who returned to the Beirut Port on August 4th to make an extra couple of dollars just to support his family.
Port employee Ghassan Hasrouty also came to mind on that day. Hasrouty, whose body was only located 2 weeks after the blast, was an employee at the port for nearly 4 decades.
To date, an investigation into the explosion has not yet unfurled answers to the most important questions surrounding the blast. Demanding justice, families of the victims can only continue pushing for an international probe into the blast.
A reminder that the government has known of the presence and dangers of the ammonium nitrate at the port for years leading up to the explosion.
