Rai decries ‘shameful’ lack of security in Bekaa

BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai decried Sunday the failure of the state to provide safety to Bekaa Valley residents, renewing calls for the arrest of members of the powerful Jaafar clan behind the killing of a couple in the Christian town of Btedaai last month.

“It is very shameful for the Bekaa to become an open land for the road blockers, the thieves stealing citizens’ money and those attacking people’s souls,” Rai said in his Sunday sermon, delivered this week in Btedaai to commemorate the 40th day since the incident in which gunmen shot dead Sobhi Fakhri and his wife Nadimeh in their home.

“It’s really painful that some officials who are responsible for citizen safety are being bribed to overlook the evil the road blockers are committing,” he said. “Has the dear Bekaa become the land of gangs?”

Rai has repeatedly accused authorities of deliberately evading the arrest of the culprits, who were running from the Lebanese Army in the Dar al-Wasaa area when they broke into the Fakhri family home and shot dead the couple and wounded one of their sons. “I call on the Jaafar family, for the honor of their clan, to hand over the murderers so that the door of reconciliation opens before them,” the patriarch said. “There is no reconciliation without justice.”

A major part of Rai’s mass was a message addressed to the children of the Fakhri couple.

“You have defeated the experience of vengeance, and Jesus’ peace has settled in your spirits,” Rai said. “You and we are addressing the state to practice justice… in order to protect the citizens’ lives, their rights and their properties in this area, and to safeguard the state’s prestige and authority.”

Earlier, Rai visited the families of the servicemen killed by jihadis who were keeping them captive on the outskirts of Arsal, during which he hailed the Army and the resistance.

“We must preserve coexistence and transcend above all conspiracies and difficulties,” Rai said, addressing the people of the Bekaa Valley from the house of soldier Mohammad Hamieh in Taraya, who was shot dead by Nusra Front in September.

Rai’s visit was warmly welcomed by area officials, including a number of MPs and ministers from Hezbollah, Amal Movement and the Future Movement.

“In such difficult times, we cannot but support the state and all its institutions, especially the military institutions that are working to protect us,” Rai added, calling on the Bekaa residents to provide an example of civil peace and national unity.

During a visit to the house of martyred soldier Abbas Medlej, Rai stressed the need to support the Army, security forces and the resistance in the face of conspiracies plotted against Lebanon.

Rai recalled a quote from Pope Francis’ Christmas message to the Mideast, delivering the pontiff’s condolences to the families of all martyrs.

His tour in east Lebanon Sunday included Bazzalieh, the village of martyred policeman Ali Bazzal, Ansar and Younin.

ISIS and the Nusra Front, who together hold 25 Lebanese servicemen as hostages, have also killed soldier Ali al-Sayyed besides Hamieh, Medlej and Bazzal.

The murders have sparked a wave of anger in many Lebanese areas and especially in the Bekaa Valley, where residents have attacked Syrian refugees in “retaliation,” forcing many of them to relocate. A wave of kidnappings also emerged in east Lebanon after the killing of Hamieh.