As the electoral battles heat up, the families of individuals who went missing during Lebanon's Civil War plan to launch a new campaign on Friday to discover the fate of those who never returned home.
On Friday, Lebanon commemorates the 43rd anniversary of the 15-year Civil War that started on April 13, 1975.
Accordingly, a campaign launched by the relatives of the disappeared and the International Committee of the Red Cross consists of presenting the names of the missing persons as candidates for the May 6 parliamentary elections, a drive that aims to remind Lebanese officials of their cause.
The “List of Missing Persons in all of Lebanon,” will be announced during a conference scheduled to support a draft-law on Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, which the Parliament has so far failed to approve.
The draft-law calls for the establishment of an independent national commission to examine the fate or find the remains of the disappeared.
“We will vote for the candidates who will pledge, in written, to establish this independent national commission,” representative of The Committee for the Families of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon Widad Halawani told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Our main cause is to know the fate of our brothers, sons and husbands,” she said.
Halawani added: “The Civil War file will only be closed when we learn who is still alive and who died, to at least receive their remains.”
An estimated 17,500 people disappeared during the war in Lebanon.
At the Presidential Palace on Thursday, President Michel Aoun reminded the cabinet about the need to form the independent national commission, and asked Justice Minister Salim Jreissati to prepare a new draft-law to solve the case.
However, Halawani criticized Aoun’s move, saying "the decision is considered a step backwards."
He should have instead called for approving the existing draft-law, she added.
