A one-year-old girl was severely burned about a month ago when her family’s balcony exploded during a birthday party in southern Lebanon.
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“Mother was in the kitchen. She was preparing breakfast while the girls were playing on the terrace, the veranda we call it because it was enclosed by glass,” Clotilde Bigot, a freelance journalist in Beirut, said in an interview with LCN on Saturday.
The family planned to flee Lebanon immediately after this meeting. Next door, on their balcony, there was an explosion that created “a kind of fireball.”
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“Three girls playing on the balcony almost caught fire. And the mother, in a fit of panic and really despair (…) had to push her daughters out of the window because it was the only way to prevent their death,” continued the journalist who collected Ivana’s testimony. mother a little over a year old.
The little girl, her sister and another child were taken to a nearby hospital. Ivana suffered third degree burns on her hands, feet, scalp and face.
After complications, the little girl was eventually transferred to a specialized burn hospital and was able to begin her recovery.
“She’s doing better, she’s talking, she’s eating, and she’ll have skin grafts on her burns on Monday,” the reporter continued.
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A life of anxiety
After a few days of respite, the anxiety of strikes has returned to Lebanese people living in and around Beirut.
“Everyone lives in a kind of anxiety, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Everyone is a bit torn between whether to prepare for the worst and at the same time whether to seize the moment,” she summed up.
On Saturday, after several days of relative calm, several strikes rocked the southern suburbs of the capital. “It was a bit of a reminder of reality, a reminder of the war, at least for the people of Beirut,” she added.
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Hospital, clear target
“What’s very strange when we talk to doctors and surgeons is that there’s always this value, this principle of wanting to heal no matter what happens. They don’t even question how or what the country will become. Right now it’s ‘we have patients and we want to help them’,” she continued.
Despite the risks, and despite being clearly affected, paramedics are focused on saving lives.
“The medical staff is simply exhausted. There are many doctors who left Lebanon during the economic crisis. So everyone is working hard and no one knows exactly what will happen,” she added.
According to the WHO, more than 20 attacks by the Israeli military have targeted medical facilities in Lebanon since September 17. Around 72 deaths and 43 injuries were reported among medical staff and sometimes patients.
“We are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best,” the journalist concluded.
To watch the full interview, click on the video above.
