2024-10-18 16:06:00
The municipality of Sultan Yacoub, a small Lebanese town where Portuguese was spoken everywhere, is deserted. Ten days ago the mayor emigrated to Qatar, the Brazilian and African employees returned home and the administration practically stopped working: on Mondays it is only open for a few hours. That Wednesday morning (16th) there was no one there. “Almost everyone who had a Brazilian passport has left,” he says Sheet Ali Jaroush, gas station manager and cousin of the mayor. “My business is down by half.”
Sultan Yacoub, Ghazze and Kamed El Laouz make up the so-called Brazilian belt in the <a href="https://time.news/cannon-fire-and-tanks-in-action-the-ground-offensive-in-lebanon-began-israel-shall-have-an-end/" title="Cannon fire and tanks in action, the ground offensive in <a href="https://time.news/israel-has-no-intention-of-staying-permanently-in-gaza-says-defense-minister/" title="Israel has no intention of staying permanently in Gaza, says defense minister”>Lebanon began. Israel "shall have an end"”>Beqaa valley, in eastern Lebanon, a few kilometers from the border with Syria.
An estimated 8,000 Brazilians lived in the region. With the war between Lebanon and Israel, much of it is gone. Israeli forces systematically bombed several towns in the Beqaa, an area with a significant presence of the Shiite Hezbollah militias, but Sunni and Christian villages were also hit.
In Sultan Yacoub, also known as Loussi, the owner of the local civil registry, Omar Abdul, one of the few authorities left in the city, estimates that between 300 and 400 Brazilians have returned to Brazil. Some of them on the repatriation flights of the Brazilian Air Force. If the calculations are correct, the small town of 2,000 inhabitants has lost around 20% of its population.
#war #Lebanon #empties #Brazilian #belt #World