BEIRUT, Lebanon
Lebanese police fired tear gas to try to disperse rock-throwing protesters blocking a road near parliament in Beirut on Sunday in a second day of anti-government demonstrations triggered by last week’s devastating explosion.
Fire
broke out at an entrance to Parliament Square as demonstrators tried to break
into a cordoned-off area, TV footage showed. Protesters also broke into the
housing and transport ministry offices.
Two
government ministers resigned amid the political fallout of the blast and
months of economic crisis, saying the government had failed to reform.
Tuesday’s
explosion of more than 2,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate killed 158 people and
injured more than 6,000, compounding months of political and economic collapse
and prompting furious calls for the government to quit.
Riot
police wearing body armour and carrying batons clashed with demonstrators as
thousands converged on Parliament Square and nearby Martyrs’ Square, a Reuters
correspondent said.
“We gave
these leaders so many chances to help us and they always failed. We want them
all out, especially Hezbollah, because it’s a militia and just intimidates
people with its weapons,” Walid Jamal, an unemployed demonstrator, said,
referring to the country’s most influential Iran-backed armed grouping that has
ministers in the government.
The
country’s top Christian Maronite cleric, Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, said
the cabinet should resign as it cannot “change the way it governs”.
“The
resignation of an MP or a minister is not enough ... the whole government
should resign as it is unable to help the country recover,” he said in his
Sunday sermon.
Lebanon’s
environment minister resigned on Sunday, saying the government had lost a
number of opportunities to reform, a statement said.
Damianos
Kattar’s departure follows the resignation of Information Minister Manal Abdel
Samad earlier on Sunday
Anger
boiled over into violent scenes in central Beirut on Saturday. Those protests
were the biggest since October when thousands of people took to the streets to
demand an end to corruption, bad governance and mismanagement.
About
10,000 people gathered at Martyrs’ Square, which was transformed into a battle
zone in the evening between police and protesters who tried to break down a
barrier along a road leading to parliament. Some demonstrators stormed
government ministries and the Association of Lebanese Banks.
One
policeman was killed and the Red Cross said more than 170 people were injured
in clashes.
“The police fired at me. But that won’t stop
us from demonstrating until we change the government from top to bottom,”
Younis Flayti, 55, a retired army officer, said on Sunday.
Nearby,
mechanic Sabir Jamali sat beside a noose attached to a wooden frame in Martyrs’
Square, intended as a symbolic warning to Lebanese leaders to resign or face
hanging.
“Every
leader who oppresses us should be hanged,” he said, adding he will protest
again.
Lawyer
Maya Habli surveyed the demolished port.
“People
should sleep in the streets and demonstrate against the government until it
falls,” she said.
The prime
minister and presidency have said 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium
nitrate, which is used in making fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six
years without safety measures at the port warehouse.
The
government has said it will hold those responsible to account.
An
emergency donor conference in France raised pledges worth nearly 253 million
euros ($298 million) for immediate humanitarian relief, the French presidency
said.
For many,
the blast was a dreadful reminder of the 1975-1990 civil war that tore the
nation apart and destroyed swathes of Beirut, much of which has since been
rebuilt.
“I worked
in Kuwait for 15 years in sanitation to save money and build a gift shop in
Lebanon and it was destroyed by the explosion,” said Maroun Shehadi.
“Nothing
will change until our leaders just leave.”
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