Karantina massacre
The Karantina massacre occurred in the early stages of the Lebanese civil war on January 18, 1976, when the state structures in Lebanon had already collapsed.
Karantina was a slum in Christian East Beirut that was controlled by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization , but was inhabited mainly by Kurds and Armenians , but also by Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims . Karantina was overrun by Syrian-backed Christian militias and large numbers of civilians were killed. The Guardian of the Cedars was one of the Christian militias that was involved in the massacre. The fighting and subsequent killings also affected the nearby Maslakh district. This massacre was followed a few days later in revenge by the Damur massacre . Both events caused many Lebanese of both religions to leave their ancestral neighborhoods in Beirut and seek refuge in areas held by militias of their own faith. This contributed to the division of the Lebanese capital into the Christian East Beirut and the Muslim West Beirut.
Estimates of the number of victims diverge. The website of the Lebanese democracy movement during the Cedar Revolution states that more than 1,000 civilians were massacred, other statements speak of "the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians, Shiites and others in Karantina and Maslakh and the revenge killings of hundreds of Christians in Damur".
Individual evidence
- ^ Kissinger, Henry (1999) Years of Renewal Simon Schuster, ISBN 1-84212-042-5 , p. 1022
- ^ Noam Chomsky (1989) Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies South End Press , ISBN 0-89608-366-7 , p. 171
- ^ Harris, p. 162
literature
- William Harris: Faces of Lebanon. Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions. Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, USA 1996