Beirut, Lebanon Mazin Kabbani, a 50-year-old IT employee, was at his home in western Beirut on August 4 when shock waves from a huge explosion shook his apartment, causing shards of glass to be scattered across his living room floor.
The blast, caused by the detonation of nearly 3,000 tons of unsecured ammonium nitrate near the port of Beirut, shook Kabbani and brought back dark memories of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.
“All oxygen was sucked out of the air. It was like we were at war again,” Kabbani told Al Jazeera as he stood at the entrance of his apartment building and handymen ran in with equipment to repair the damage caused by the explosion. to repair.
More traumatic for Kabbani than his own experience was the thought that his 21-year-old daughter, Alaa, might have been dead if luck had not been on her side that day.
“We could not reach her hours after the explosion,” said the father of four, recalling how his middle child was on his way to a restaurant in Gemayze, a historic neighborhood near the harbor, when the explosion struck.
“If it were not for a final change in her plans, she might not be with us anymore,” he said.
His eyes turned red and he sucked at his words as he held back the tears.
Already exposed by an ongoing financial crisis, weakening of public services and deep political instability, the explosion was the last straw for Kabbani and his family. Like many Lebanese, Kabbani now sees no choice but to leave. Despite wanting to stay in his homeland until the end of his life, he has now decided to settle with his family elsewhere.
“My wife and I were busy establishing a life here. Even though I had short toys with the thought of leaving when we were first married, my wife suggested that we keep our children and grow up close to our families,” he said.
“But since the explosion, she’s been the one pushing us to emigrate,” he explained, adding that the family was already in the process of completing migration papers to Canada.
Kabbani, a 50-year-old father of four, says he is in the process of completing immigration papers to Canada [Arwa Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]
Like Kabbani, the explosion reminded Nizar *, a 38-year-old business owner in Beirut, of the Lebanese civil war and frightened him of the safety and security of his four-year-old son.
‘Being a war child [someone who experienced the civil war], the rumble of the windows reminded me of my grandmother’s voice telling me I had to leave because a bomb was about to explode, “said Nizar, who visited Beirut in the 1980s. -er years remembered.
“If my son had been home that day, he would have been dead or seriously injured. Just the thought of it drives me crazy, “said Nizar, adding that he and his wife, who has a U.S. passport, decided to leave in two weeks.
“We booked our flights, rented an apartment in New York and packed our lives in Beirut for good,” he added.
Nizar, who asked to be changed his name for privacy concerns, said feelings of responsibility for Lebanon had kept him going earlier and gave him “cold feet” every time he thought of leaving.
“I feel guilty about going, guilty that I can leave if others can not, but Lebanon is no longer safe. I just can not do this to my family,” he said.
‘Mass exodus’
Although only one indicator, Information International, a Beirut-based research consulting firm that has conducted extensive research on migration in Lebanon, said its records show the average number of people leaving the country on a daily basis, increasing from 3,100 to the day of ‘ the explosion, to 4,100 people after the incident.
“There are no exact statistics yet on the impact of the blast, but the number of people leaving Lebanon will certainly increase in the coming months as a result,” said Jawad Adra, founder and managing partner of Information International.
“We’re already seeing a mass exodus.”
Pictures of packed lounges at Rafic Hariri airport have been circulating on social media as many Lebanese people of the whole plan have said they want to leave the country since the explosion. But according to Adra, many of the first to leave were wealthy families and dual citizens, adding that “the opportunity to go is a privilege”.
“A lot of people want to leave, but not everyone can afford it or have assets like money, education, another nationality or relatives abroad to help,” he explained, adding that emigration also depended on the willingness of host countries to capture Lebanese citizens.
Several countries have shown solidarity with Lebanon since the explosion by reducing immigration processes. France has resumed issuing visas for Lebanese citizens following a halt to the coronavirus pandemic, while Canada has introduced special immigration measures to help return Lebanese citizens and Canadians living in Lebanon.
The idea of migration is anything but new in a country that has a long history of “exodus” due to years of war, famine and political instability and economic crisis.
“Tens of thousands of people have been abandoned over the past 10 to 20 years, with the largest demographic of young professionals and people under 45,” Adra said.
The past few months have also been particularly challenging. The deepening financial crisis has made it very difficult to find work or pay for basic necessities, and has forced many to leave the country.
“Many of my friends and family have been abandoned over the past year and especially since October,” Nizar said, referring to the dire circumstances in the country, which have swept thousands into the streets to protest against government, corruption and lack of basic services.
According to a report released by Information International, data obtained from General Security Registers estimated that the number of Lebanese people leaving the country and not returning was 66,806 between mid-December 2018 and mid-December 2019, a 97.5 percent increase compared to the same period in years earlier.
‘For my children’
But even as prices rose and life became more difficult in the past few years, Shireen Anouti, a 34-year-old housewife, defeated her sweetheart with her three children and husband, Mohamed, a businessman and double Swedish national.
“Even when the economic crisis hit the country, I did not want to go,” she said.
“But after the explosion, everything changed,” she added as she hugged her three-year-old daughter Julia and told how her uncle, a long-term patient in the hospital, died in the ward at Rome Hospital after glasses tears through his body due to the explosion.
Anouti said her family plans to migrate to Sweden within the coming weeks.
“It is time to leave. There is no safety for my children in Lebanon. They deserve a future without fear, without trauma.”
Anouti, 34, said she and her family plan to move to Sweden within the next few weeks [Arwa Ibrahim/Al Jazeera]
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