More than four tonnes of ammonium nitrate found in Beirut port

A month after the explosion that left 190 people dead, more than 6,000 injured and a city largely under rubble, the Lebanese Armed Forces located a shipment of more than four tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in four containers. This new discovery followed an inspection this Thursday at the entrance to the port of the city.

According to a statement from the Army, quoted by the National News Agency (NNA), it said they were "in charge of that", but have not yet reported on the origin of the dangerous explosive material. The controversy is that during the investigation that began a month ago, just after the explosion, no official or worker at the port had mentioned the presence of this amount of ammonium nitrate, which could have caused a much greater impact if the explosion had also hit it.

Two days after the disaster, the Lebanese authorities announced the arrest of 16 people and in addition to those arrested there was an undetermined number of people under investigation. Among those arrested are several senior officials of the Beirut port authority for their alleged responsibility in the storage and maintenance of the explosives.

The investigation, still not concluded, confirmed that the main hypothesis is that the 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which had been accumulating for six years in one of the warehouses of the port of Beirut burned due to the precarious security conditions on the site. The Beirut authorities declared a state of emergency in the city, which will last a month from its approval on 13 August. This measure was criticised by human rights groups who believe that this state of emergency only served the government to increase its power and control the population more aggressively.

The consequences of the explosion in Lebanese politics were not long in coming and the country's then prime minister, Hassan Diab, resigned on 10 August in view of the new wave of protests and when he had only been in office for a few months. "Today we are responding to the citizens' desire to demand transparency from those who have been responsible for the disaster that has been hidden for seven years and their desire for a real change. In the face of this reality...I announce the resignation of this government," said Diab in his resignation

After weeks of searching for a new president and following international pressure, particularly from French President Emmanuel Macron, the country announced the formation of a new government under Mustafa Adib, former ambassador of Lebanon to Germany. The French president was the first international leader to arrive in the Lebanese capital with humanitarian aid, a message of support and the intention to put forward a programme to get the country out of the crisis.

Although some have seen in this attitude of Macron a certain "colonialism" and "paternalism" reminiscent of past eras, senior Lebanese officials have pointed out that the mediation of the French president is proving essential to securing an agreement on the formation of the new government. Since the end of the civil war (1975-1990), power in Lebanon has been shared by several leaders representing the country's different religious communities.

With the Lebanese lira plummeting and black market dollar prices skyrocketing; street protests since October 2019; and an unprecedented health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lebanon continues in its worst collapse since the end of the civil war. Even before the explosion, the country's situation was worrying, as it was in a deep economic crisis. Public debt stands at 170% of GDP, one of the highest in the world, and negotiations for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been at a standstill since May. 

The managing director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, makes the country's entry into the billions of dollars conditional on the authorities' commitment to a series of reforms, such as restoring solvency to the public accounts. Unemployment stands at 25 percent and nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line, in addition to the lack of basic services such as drinking water and energy.