Lebanese etch memories and ink over scars of Beirut blast

Lebanon News
2021-07-25 | 09:47
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Lebanese etch memories and ink over scars of Beirut blast
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Lebanese etch memories and ink over scars of Beirut blast

Lebanese personal trainer Ramzi Baaklini was right outside his gym facing Beirut port when a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate exploded on August 4 last year, throwing him to the ground.

The impact with the concrete caused several injuries for the now 30-year-old expat who has been tattooing over his scars, saying that he was given a second chance to fight and start over.

It took Baaklini only a couple of months after the explosion to take the decision to leave Lebanon, pursuing a career and a new life in the United Arab Emirates.

"The blast was in August, on October 17 I had left... I decided to leave everything, my home, my parents, my siblings, another car I had and that I used, my dogs, everything I made and built for 10 years, I had to leave it all," he said, adding how proud he was of his latest tattoo of Lebanon's infamous Cedar tree.

Like him, many Lebanese chose, after the blast, to leave permanent memories of Beirut and what happened on August 4 on their bodies.

Tattoo artist Joa Antoun said she inked more than 30 tattoos reading the word 'Beirut' in various designs; as well as drawings of the blast victims on the skin of the loved ones who lost them.

The port blast killed more than 200 people, injured thousands of others and destroyed swathes of the Lebanese capital. One of the victims is Joe Noun who was killed along with other firefighters as they battled the flames that ignited at the port.

A drawing of Noun's face smiling, with 'legend in heaven' under it, is tattooed on his cousin, Roy Samaha's arm. Samaha said many around him also got tattoos in memory of Noun.

For Lebanese marketing manager Mohammed Gharbieh, a tattoo enthusiast, getting a tattoo "for Beirut" was the only thing he could think of after the blast and helping friends whose homes were destroyed.

"I wanted to leave a mark for this on me because what happened inside (of me), what was broken inside (of me) cannot be repaired," he said.

Gharbieh has many tattoos over his body, but still added a large one on his torso for Beirut. His tattoo is a drawing of smoke rising from a Beirut skyline building, in the form of the mushroom cloud caused by the blast, all in a broken coffee mug with Arabic words reading "Beirut, God's test", words for the famous late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich.

 
REUTERS
 

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