Photos: Decades on, Beirut’s buildings flaunt scars of war

They are a common sight around Beirut, but their presence barely registers with Lebanese citizens anymore. Nearly 30 years after civil war guns fell silent, dozens of bullet-scarred, shell-pocked buildings are still standing — testimony to a brutal conflict that raged for 15 years and took the lives of 150,000 people. ...read more

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Updated on Apr 13, 2019 12:14 PM IST

Shiyah, a Muslim Shiite neighbourhood is seen from a destroyed apartment in the southern Beirut Christian district of Ain el-Rummaneh, Lebanon. The two sides fought fierce battles during the 1975-90 civil war, which started with a shooting on a bus in Ain el-Rummaneh. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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Beirut’s landmark Holiday Inn hotel (C), a hulking, bullet-riddled blue and white building riddled with bullets and shells, stands between new designer towers. The hotel, which opened just two years before the war broke out on April 13, 1975, was destroyed early on and used as a sniper’s nest. It has stood deserted since then, its shareholders locked in legal dispute. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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A pigeon flies next to the Dome City Center in downtown Beirut. There’s this modernist movie theatre that never was, nicknamed locally “The Egg.” Its moldy skeleton stands as a ruin, its future unclear. Like the Holiday Inn, it is a curious attraction for visiting foreigners. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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Syrian refugee children stand on the stairs of their apartment in a building on a former Beirut frontline. There are a few remaining residential buildings located along the former Green Line, which separated the mainly Muslim part of West Beirut from the predominantly Christian part, their ravaged facades a testimony to the horrors witnessed many years ago. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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Graffiti by Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada depicting a boy is painted on a bullet riddled building. The buildings still stand, either because their owners have no money to fix them, or because of disputes over ownership. “Seeing these buildings is like being slapped in the face,” said Sahar Mandour, a Lebanese journalist and a writer. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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A man passes in front of Beit Beirut, the nearly 100 year-old house that served as a sniper position. “You’re walking around going about your daily business when suddenly you come face to face with a scene that takes you back to the old days,” Mandour said. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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Unlike others who dislike the sight of these buildings and think they should be demolished, Mandour, 42, says it’s important that they stay for the nation’s collective memory, to never forget a war that pitted Palestinians against Lebanese, Christians against Muslims, Christians against Christians and every other combination possible. Israel also stepped in, adding to the destruction. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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Bullet holes from Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war are seen on the walls of the St. Vincent de Paul church in downtown Beirut. “For a foreigner, it is a destroyed building. For us, it is a painful reminder of the bullets that pierced our bodies, streets and walls,” Mandour said. “I don’t want these buildings to disappear, their mission is not over yet.” (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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An inhabited building that is still riddled with bullets and shells left over from the civil war. Not everyone feels the same. A woman who rents an apartment in a bullet-scarred building on the former Green Line between the mainly Muslim Shiyah and Christian Ayn el Rummaneh districts, said she worries about her two sons and society judging them for where they live. (Hassan Ammar / AP)

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A visitor checks the mosaic of the Good Shepherd that was badly damaged in the lower left corner by a sniper during the civil war. The woman keeps plants on the veranda and on the stairs to compensate for the building’s grim facade. “If I had somewhere else to go, I would,” she said, identifying herself by her nickname, Imm Lebnen, or mother of Lebanon. (Hassan Ammar / AP)