Even a child today knows to fear a thick column of smoke extending from the heart of Beirut.
It’s been a little over a month since the Beirut explosion mangled the Lebanese capital and traumatized its people.
In addition to the immense damage it caused, the devastating psychological impact it left on countless people, including tens of thousands of children, is not easy to recover from.
And while the afflicted people of Beirut tried to find peace in the relative calm that followed the terrible disaster and heal, their sky turned into threatening heavy smoke again.
The Thursday fire left many paralyzed with fear. But perhaps the cry of panic of one particular boy sums up the inner feelings of numerous Lebanese people today — adults and children.
“We’re going to die, we’re going to die, we’re going to die,” a weeping boy who appears to be no older than 10 kept apprehensively repeating, joined by his young siblings crying, as he ran down the stairs to the entrance of the building he was in, in Beirut.
From the balcony in that building, he had been anxiously observing the monster that was rising from behind the nearby buildings and taking over the sky.
“I want to go to the mountain,” the sobbing boy uttered in response to his father’s question of why he was so scared. “Why?” the father asked.
“Because we’re going to die!” He answered frantically.
He kept repeating “we’re going to die” next to the younger children surrounding him, presumably his siblings, as his father assured them otherwise.
“Take us to the mountain… Take us to the mountain… Take us to the mountain,” he kept begging his father.
The fear in his eyes and the certainty in his voice that he and his family were going to die, tell the story of a child who was forced to witness death and destruction at an age when his biggest concerns should not be more serious than an unfinished homework.
The boy is just one of many children in Lebanon who were stripped of their right to be children; who have been forced to live with the fact that the black shadow of death is right around the corner of a cracked building in front of their house.
