40 000 run for unity in Beirut
2005-04-10 14:11
Beirut - About 40 000 Lebanese from across the country participated Sunday in the five-kilometre "Marathon for Unity", with runners setting out from Martyrs square and the grave of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
"We are running in unity with each other to show the world that the Lebanese are united," said the head of the Beirut Marathon Association, May al-Khalil.
Women, elderly and children as well as handicapped were clad in white as they started their run from Beirut's central district.
Thousands of red, white and green balloons, representing the Lebanese flag, were set free in the air as the marathon started.
Bahia Hariri, a member of parliament and sister of the late Hariri, welcomed the crowd and called on all the Lebanese to stay free.
"We want all of you to live in peace and with freedom," she addressed the crowd.
Political turmoil
Hariri, who is seen as her brother's political heiress, has called for a "festival of peace and unity" from April 9-13, the 30th anniversary of the start of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.
Rafik Hariri, credited with having built Beirut in the aftermath of the conflict, was killed in a bomb blast February 14, an event that stunned the nation and plunged it into political turmoil.
Since Hariri's murder in a seafront area a few hundred metres away, Martyrs' Square in the downtown district has turned into a pilgrimage site to the tomb where he was buried and the scene of anti-Syrian protests.
The opposition has blamed his death on the Lebanese authorities and their backers in Damascus, a charge denied by both governments. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA