NEW YORK CITY: As Lebanon marked the sixth anniversary on Tuesday of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, the UN called on authorities in the country to accelerate the stalled investigation into the blast, and to pursue structural reforms that would strengthen judicial independence.
Jean Arnault, the officer in charge of the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, said efforts to move judicial proceedings toward a conclusive outcome “must be redoubled,” and called on “all relevant actors” to take the necessary steps to facilitate swift progress in the case.
He also stressed the importance of advancing structural reforms to safeguard the independence of the judiciary, describing this as a cornerstone of effective state-building and Lebanon’s broader reforms agenda.
A massive explosion tore through Beirut’s port on Aug. 4, 2020, after a fire ignited about 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse for years without proper safety precautions, despite repeated warnings to officials.
The blast, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, killed at least 218 people, injured more than 7,000, and left an estimated 300,000 residents temporarily homeless. It flattened large sections of the port and its surrounding neighborhoods, causing damage estimated at several billion dollars.
Six years later, the domestic investigation into the disaster remains unresolved. The lead investigator, Judge Tarek Bitar, has faced repeated legal challenges, recusal demands and suspensions of his work. Numerous politicians and security officials he sought to question invoked their right to parliamentary or personal immunity.
Rights groups and the victims’ families have accused successive governments of shielding senior figures from accountability, citing years of political interference, legal maneuvering by implicated officials, and long stretches in which the probe was effectively frozen.
No one has been convicted in connection with the blast, and although calls for an independent international investigation have resurfaced periodically, Lebanese authorities have so far resisted ceding jurisdiction over the case.
Asked by Arab News whether there was any role the UN could play in supporting the investigation, and what it would take to establish a fact-finding mission for this purpose, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, told Arab News the organization stood with survivors, the families of victims and all those affected by the tragedy, and would continue to offer advice as needed. However, he added that the UN was not a judicial authority in Lebanon.
