Two friends sit outside their homes in the Jabal Mohsen neighborhood of Tripoli. Sept. 21, 2023. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
Sidewalks. Apartment buildings. Commercial airplanes parked at the Beirut airport, a Saida vegetable seller’s potato cart. This author’s own balcony.
All of the above have been hit by stray bullets. Across Lebanon in 2023, these bullets were fired during celebrations and funerals, or by hunters and people taking part in gunfights.
Of course, people are also struck — dozens of them. Two teenage boys playing football. A woman living too close to recent deadly gunfights. A young woman attending Palm Sunday mass; a little girl at a playground. A woman simply standing on her roof.
Some walked away with injuries, while others died of their wounds. It is impossible to know the exact sources or shooters of all these stray bullets.
Emergency responders help a woman flee the scene of deadly shooting in Beirut's Tayouneh roundabout, Oct. 14, 2021. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
A children's drawing of a gun over Tripoli. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
The issue was brought to tragic new light by the August death of Naya Hanna, a seven-year-old girl struck by celebratory gunfire while playing outside in Hadath, just south of Beirut. She died of her wounds after three weeks in the hospital.
A new draft law amendment — proposed that same month by Koura MP Adib Abdelmasih and dubbed “Naya Hanna’s Law” — could bring harsher penalties for suspects accused of firing bullets into the air as well as organizers of events where stray bullets are fired; that is, if the law is properly enforced.
Meanwhile, victims’ families tell L’Orient Today in no uncertain terms that they want the state to punish those who harmed their loved ones.
Yet the injuries and deaths have continued. During the months-long process of writing this introduction and creating the below infographic, more than a dozen additional people were struck by bullets.
Hover your mouse over the icons in the infographic above to learn more about each of the victims; click on their icon and the link in the pop-up to read their stories.
This infographic is intended as a database of stray bullet injuries and deaths in Lebanon this past year, based on news media reports, information sent in from our regional correspondents and interviews with local officials.
More dots, testimonies and articles were added to this chart over the months as further stories came to light.
As multiple families told L’Orient Today: “This time it was us, next time it could be someone else.”
Read more from this project:
Stray bullets: What is the Lebanese judiciary doing?
'City of peace': Mariam Ibrahim's story
'I don’t go hunting anymore': Wassim Hafezeh's story
'It should be safe for everyone to play wherever they want': Veh Christ Harboyan's story