At Beirut Port, Pope Leo embraces a Lebanon demanding truth and justice

Silent prayer in front of the monument bearing the names of the more than 200 victims of the 2020 explosion. Kneeling in front of a child with a picture of his father who died in the tragedy. After five years, there are still obstacles to the investigation. The story of Nation Station, a kitchen set up in those days to feed those who had lost everything and which is trying to be a laboratory for the future.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - Silent prayer in front of the monument bearing the names of the victims. And the personal and touching encounter with families who have lost loved ones and still cannot find answers to their demands for justice. More than five years after the most tragic day in Lebanon's recent history, this morning's stop at the Beirut port area, where rubble and gutted silos remain, was the most touching moment of the last day of Pope Leo XIV's visit to Lebanon.

It was 4 August 2020 when what has been described as one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history killed over 200 people, injured another 7,000 and left 300,000 homeless. It was the ammonium nitrate confiscated in 2014 from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus and stored in the port without safety measures that sowed death and destruction. But there is also a great deal of blame and responsibility that heavy political cover-ups - first and foremost the hostility of Hezbollah - have so far prevented from being defined in court. Only in February this year, after years of suspension, were the investigations conducted by Judge Tarek Bitar able to resume, but uncertainties remain due to obstacles and interference from political leaders and state officials, who refused to appear for questioning and denounced the judge himself.

In this context, the Pope laid a wreath of red roses in front of the monument and paused to pray in silence for the victims of that tragedy. He then stopped to meet some of the families who were carrying pictures of their loved ones who had been taken away by the explosion. Leo XIV blessed them, shook hands, and knelt in front of a child who was holding a photo of his father to his chest. ‘I am happy,’ Antonella Hitti, one of these family members, commented to VaticaNews, expressing the feelings of all. ‘The Pope's presence is a small dose of hope. We pray with him. And we pray for justice, truth and accountability.’

The port of Beirut is now the clearest symbol of Lebanon's suffering. But it is also an icon of the resilience of its people, to which Leo XIV has referred many times in recent days. This is what is happening, for example, at Nation Station, in the Achrafieh neighbourhood, where, in the aftermath of the explosion, the community has come together around a kitchen. ‘In the early days of the emergency, a group of neighbours and I had the spontaneous reaction to do something together for the neighbourhood,’ says Josephine Abou Abdo, a 35-year-old food designer who was one of the founders of this humanitarian initiative, which over time has also become a cultural experiment. So we gathered in this building, which was an abandoned petrol station, and turned it into a meeting place to support each other. We hadn't planned anything, but we soon experienced enormous support from friends, family members and people who were simply passing by and decided to come in and lend a hand." What was once a car wash has become a community kitchen: ‘From the beginning, we distributed two to three hundred meals a day,’ Josephine recalls.

Currently, distributions are three times a week: people come and take home supplies. And as the economic situation of the Lebanese has deteriorated further and further, there is always a queue under the brightly coloured sign. Thanks to donations, project funding and crowdfunding, the young people of Nation Station have been at the forefront of every emergency in recent years, starting with last year's conflict with Israel, which caused mass displacement from the regions targeted by bombing. From the outset, however, the idea was to go beyond charity: ‘Our goal,’ explains the food designer, ‘remains to grow the neighbourhood and make it a protagonist. That's why we started hiring residents to cook for their neighbours, and we try to make the beneficiaries understand that this place is theirs too. Our movement started with food, but it is a means to create dialogue. It's a formula we would like to replicate in other parts of Lebanon.’