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Beirut: “Our hearts bleed”
Foreign Minister Maas on the explosion in Beirut (BILD newspaper, 6 August)
People covered in blood. Roads buried under rubble and ash. Cars spiralling through the air like toys. A ball of fire which today, 75 years after Hiroshima, inevitably brings to mind the destructive force of an atomic bomb. Images of the apocalypse reach us from Beirut. Our hearts bleed. We share in the victims’ pain.
When suffering seems endless, then solidarity must also know no end. In this hour of need, we are there to help. The Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) is on the ground digging survivors out of the rubble. The Red Cross is looking after the injured, supported by the Federal Foreign Office. More assistance will follow. The Federal Government crisis unit is working around the clock. And our Embassy in Beirut is doing everything to help Germans in Lebanon as much as it can – even though colleagues have also been hit hard.
This disaster may have turned Beirut to rubble, but it has not shaken our friendship with Lebanon. The people in Beirut need to know that we will not abandon them.