Beirut 1985: family horror, photojournalist’s insane courage

A terrorized family takes refuge under a metal bridge on the airport boulevard, August 20, 1985. Kamel Lamaa / AFP

However, the summer of 1985 began quietly. Finally, calm is a very loud word, especially in Lebanon and especially in those years: there was a war of camps, then the Amal-PSP battles, then the famous TWA hijacking, but let’s say that it was generally alive. Then came August. Suddenly, after ten years of war, the Lebanese, for no apparent reason, decided to cut each other again – or maybe they were ordered to? All means were good: confessional kidnappings, deadly car bombings, and as if that wasn’t enough, the protagonists started beating each other with heavy weapons. No, not by myself, but by civilians on the other side.

So the night before this Tuesday, August 20, was hellish. Obviously, the photojournalists took advantage of the lull the next morning to bring back footage. Two of them, Kamel Lamaa and his colleague Maher Attar, leave the AFP office on Rome Street in a Toyota taxi driven by Hussein Awarki. Here and there people take advantage of the lull to stock up. Of course, the atmosphere is tense, we know that shelling can resume at any moment, but we always think that we will have time to finish what we have to do. In war photographs, I have always been struck by how the victims are dressed on their last day. These people got up as usual, decided to put on this or that piece of clothing, this pair of shoes that goes to him, the women put on their make-up, the men shaved, finally we dressed up, not for a moment suspecting that someone would no longer be from the world. this same evening.

Driving down the airport boulevard, the Toyota pulls up to the Kuwaiti embassy in the middle of the day when shells start raining down without any warning signs. The three friends are forced to abandon their car to take cover behind a metal bridge but fragments are already flying around and Maher gets one in his hand. They start running again towards the beginning of the bridge, which seems to offer more protection, but Maher trips and sprains his ankle. He calls for help, and the way you can react at such moments is sometimes absurd: seeing how he writhes in pain, Kamel hears his own cry: “We can’t help you, hide in a hole!”

Kamel continues: “All of a sudden these people appeared in front of me, I didn’t see how they arrived. Family ? Residents of sheet metal block shacks who were afraid to stay at home? Without thinking twice, he pulls out a camera; a professional photographer has taken over, but his survival reflex tells him that his final hour has come. He recalls: “When I took these photographs, I told myself that they would be my last, that we would find a camera next to my body, that we would find out how I died doing my job. He is scared, terribly scared, but the adrenaline gets the best of him: “There is no time to think in the heat of the moment. And the bombardment is insane, just look at the faces of those people below deck: it’s pure horror captured by Kamel in his roll of negatives.

The main thing is not to crack in front of the little ones.

Yes, this is a family, you can see it, they are similar, dad, mom, two girls, a boy. In other countries, they would be photographed with the same face on a roller coaster for fun. Here they are on the verge of apoplexy, waiting for the moment when they will be torn to pieces. The head of the family holds his children by the wrists as if he can save them, because it is his job, but at the same time makes himself very small. Like his wife, he has assumed fetal position and is watching the structure of the bridge, as if wondering if she can resist. I don’t know what sound comes out of his open mouth, maybe he is crying out to God? The mother, for her part, is looking for something in the expression of her husband’s face that would cling to some kind of hope; Panicked, she clasped her hands together to keep her composure, especially so as not to break down in front of the little ones. For it is in children that horror is expressed in the most rude way: all three are crying; the sister, who seems to be the oldest, puts her hand to her heart, she lost her sandals in a panic, and the other clings to them. In this scene, three of the five characters are looking to the right: the shells are undoubtedly falling in that direction, that is, behind the photographer, whose recklessness borders on the absurd. And the little boy? How old is he, ten years old, a century of war; with his shorts and toothpicks to serve as his legs, he looks like any kid of his age, he has the face of a little joker, aside from his frightened expression, I think he is a little favorite, obviously we are in the East. But he cries hot tears, as we all cried in shelters that smelled of mold and dust and rat poison; he’s shaking like we’re all shaking, and with each explosion he jumps up and hopes the rain of burning debris doesn’t hurt him, just as we all hoped to get out of it, not really believing it.

Like a passing shower

Kamel still remembers another image that marked him: at some point he turns around, sees Hussein, squatting, prostrate, looking into space: “I never saw him like that, who saw everything, was not afraid of anything, he was paralyzed, as if absent from himself. I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture.”

The next moment it’s all over, this scene lasted ten minutes at the most; the firing suddenly stopped. Kamel describes this surreal feeling: “It was like rain falling, people got up and disappeared, I never saw them again. Passers-by and cars moved again, life went back to normal! Kamel and Hussain find a miraculously surviving Maher, who is today an established artist. They miraculously managed to escape: the Toyota is riddled like a sieve, the windows are broken, and the tire is flat.

Like Jean-Loup Bersuder, who introduced me to his acquaintance, Kamel Lamaa belongs to the generation of the military: in 1975 he was 17 years old. long time. He recalls: “In 1975, I started taking photographs to commemorate these unusual events without a press card, before I was caught by the Mourabitoons in Ras al-Nabeh. He narrowly escapes being accused of espionage. Keeping his calling, he worked in Nidaa before joining AFP in 1985. In the meantime, he covered the Israeli invasion in 1982 and was one of the first to arrive at Camp Sabra after the massacres. He will save a terrible injury. In 1987 he married a German journalist working in Lebanon, and two years later went into exile in Germany.

About this photo, he further elaborates: “It nearly won the World Press Photo Prize in 1986. A few months later, she was favored with a photograph of Omaira Sanchez, a 13-year-old Colombian girl trapped in a landslide. die there. How can we forget Omaira’s expression in another famous shot? In panic or resignation, the child’s view of death is especially unbearable.

The author of Before Forgetting I and II (co-published by Antoine-L’Orient-Le Jour), Georges Bustani invites you every two weeks to visit the Lebanon of the last century through historical photography. The works are available in bookstores in Lebanon and worldwide at www.antoineonline.com and www.BuyLebanese.com.

Source: L Orient Le Jour

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