What Happened Seconds After They Took This ‘Selfie’ Is Horrifying. There Are No Words.,
This past friday morning, four friends in Beirut, Lebanon met up to hang out and, more or less, do what ordinary 16-year-olds do. One of them decided to take a ‘selfie’ photo of the group. What happened next is beyond horrific.
This is the photograph. Notice two things: the gold vehicle in the background and the boy in the red sweatshirt. His name is Mohammad al-Chaar. Seconds later, the unthinkable happened…
A car bomb in the gold vehicle exploded, shrapnel striking al-Chaar in the head. These 4 innocent teenagers’ lives were forever changed in an instant.
The next day, he died. These are his high school friends mourning their tragic loss at the funeral.
The terrorist attack was targeting a leading Lebanese political official. Mohamad Chatah, the country’s former finance minister and a foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Saad Hariri were both killed in the attack. In total, 8 people, including Mohammad al-Chaar from the photo, were killed. At least 70 others were wounded.
A user on Reddit, named goodbatch, commenting after viewing the photos above said it perfectly:
“This photo makes me think and feel so many different things – and they’re all pretty much terrible. Anger, for the senseless loss of an innocent young life that was full of promise for the future. Sadness, at the grief that his friends and family must be feeling. Then sadness multiplied when I extend this thought to include the other victims of the attack. Of all terrorist attacks. But above all I feel fear, for my own life, in the context of this unstoppable human culture of horrific violence. Even living in a relatively safe country, this makes me think of my own mortality. Because I live in a world where normal people commit unspeakable acts of evil because they believe it is justified, where I could be collateral damage in a person’s quest for martyrdom and glory, and where large-scale political agendas overshadow the tremendous and irreplaceable value of a single person’s little life. All this from a boy in a red sweatshirt. May he rest in peace.”
Everything can change in a moment. Sometimes, the world is an unfair, horrifying place to be.
You can read more about the bombing here.
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