An urgent cry for help from Deir Mimas... Help us!

Deir Mimas, 13 mei 2026

"This deserves every call, every effort and every pressure to save it, to stop what is happening and to clarify the situation before silence becomes complicity in the loss."

What happened last night, May 12, 2026, in Deir Mimas, a Christian Orthodox village in South Lebanon It is a village where we, as Veterans for Lebanon, are setting up projects and which we talked about with them in Beirut last November.

Deir Mimas is a municipality located 88 km south of Beirut in Lebanon. The city, named after Saint Mamas, overlooks the Litani River and the medieval Beaufort Castle to the west, and the snow-capped peaks of Mount Hermon to the east. The municipality has about 4,600 inhabitants.
                                              

Yesterday we received the following message from Chucri, our contact person:

An urgent cry for help from Deir Mimas... Help us!

It is heartbreaking to be awakened in the middle of the night to a violent explosion, an explosion that shakes the foundations of the village and forces people to look out through their shattered windows in fear, without knowing what has happened or where. Plumes of smoke rose from the direction of Haret El-Khalleh, and with them came speculation, fear, and questions: What was the target this time? Who is affected? And what awaits Deir Mimas?

At dawn, the extent of the disaster became clear. The target was the only well that supplied drinking water to the houses in Deirmimas, powered by a solar power plant that we had painstakingly installed. This plant had already been repaired three times, the last time just a few weeks ago thanks to a donation from the Lebanese army, after it had already been attacked and destroyed twice before. This was not an isolated attack, nor a transient incident. It is an accumulation of losses of more than a hundred thousand dollars, and a deprivation of the most fundamental right to life of our people: water.

What makes the situation even worse is that Deir Mimas has been without electricity for more than two months and the additional reserve well in the area around Houra has also been blown up. In other words, the main water source has been affected, the reserve source has been affected and the power supply to the water system has failed. What is left for the people? How should they live on now? Let's call a spade a spade: this is unacceptable pressure on people and forced displacement, even though it is not officially called that.

But the disaster didn't stop there.
With the first rays of sunshine, it became clear that the explosion had also affected the only housing project in the history of Deir Mimas; the project that embodied the dream of the young people of the village to stay, create families and raise their children in their community, their homes and on their land. Nine new apartments, nine families, most of them young men and women still at the beginning of their lives, with small children in their first years of life, now stand on the streets without a home, without personal belongings, without daily memories and without the sense of security that they had built up with so much effort, brick by brick.

This orthodox housing project was not just any building.It was a collective dream. The pastor had fought hard for it and engineers from the village stood by him, until it became a reality after God blessed us with Mr. Bassam Diab, who joyfully and generously donated almost a million dollars to make this dream a reality. It was the dream that the young people of Deir Mimas would continue to live on their own land instead of emigrating. The dream that the village would grow through its children and new families, instead of emptying out. And today, in the blink of an eye, that dream has been reduced to rubble.

And the pain was not limited to the project. The neighboring houses of the beloved Touma family, people who believed in Deir Mimas and built their dream homes to return from abroad, today saw their years of efforts turned into ruins. And Kamel Barnaba's house, the first house built in that area more than forty years ago, has also become a memory. Houses of hard work and years of sacrifice were gone in the blink of an eye.

Today's question is: who sets a limit to this? Who will stop this destruction? And who bears responsibility for the unknown fate to which Deir Mimas, its inhabitants and our entire region are driven!

Deir Mimas is not a dot on the map. Deir Mimas means so much to us. It means our people, our homes, our churches, our olive trees, the hard work of our ancestors and the right of our children to live in safety. The safety of our people and every stone of Deir Mimas is our business, and it deserves every call, every effort, and every pressure to save it, to stop what is happening, and to clarify the situation before silence becomes complicity in the loss.

We are a village that has opted for state formation, the army and the rule of law. So where's the protection? We don't want cold statements. We want concrete and urgent action. We ask the Church to take her responsibility and her leaders to act at every level, including informing and mobilizing the Apostolic Nunciature and others, because what is happening affects people, the stones and our entire existence.

We ask our people in the diaspora, around the world, and especially in the United States, to take action through their contacts, their representatives, their governments and their media, so that the voice of Deir Mimas is heard. Don't abandon the village. Do not let our people face the darkness, thirst, fear and displacement in silence.

What has happened is extremely worrying and opens the door to possibilities where even the least bitter consequences are still bitter.

Deir Mimas screams out. The people, the destroyed houses, the cut off water supply and the children left homeless, have only one word: HELP.