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Ministry buildings are overrun as thousands of protesters rock Beirut

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The death toll in Tuesday’s explosion and fireball climbed to at least 158 people.
BEIRUT — Thousands of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Beirut, taking over the government ministries and facing off against security forces amid an outpouring of anger after the huge blasts that ripped through the city this past week. A protest in central Martyrs’ Square turned violent early as soldiers and police forces fired tear gas and protesters threw rocks, adding to the bloodshed for a city that has already bled so much. Ambulances ferried newly injured demonstrators to hospitals even as the death toll in Tuesday’s explosion and fireball climbed to at least 158 people. An elderly man with gray hair was carried out of the crowd, an eye out and bleeding from the head. The Red Cross said 26 ambulances were responding, with at least 28 people taken to hospitals and more than 100 treated at the scene. As the clashes moved through the streets, a group of protesters took over the country’s foreign ministry, jubilantly setting up a protest camp in its marble-floored rooms. But the mood was overwhelmingly dark and desperate. Calls for retribution against corrupt leaders abounded. “Resign or hang,” read one posting for the demonstration that circulated online. It showed a cedar tree – the symbol of Lebanon – engulfed in flames and two nooses. Demonstrators had erected a large gallows in the square with cardboard cut outs of the leaders of the country’s political factions. The tragedy has sparked an outpouring of anger among the population, already reeling from economic collapse that has pushed much of its middle class into poverty and chafing from decades of political corruption and cronyism. The fury has been directed at the full spectrum of Lebanon’s political factions, including the powerful Shiite militia Hezbollah, which is widely believed to wield control over the port where 2,750 metric tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate sat unsecured for more than six years. “Have you seen my son?” the mother of 23-year Joe Akiki, an electrician at the port who died in the blast, screamed into a microphone in front of the gathered crowd. “He has beautiful hazel eyes. Where are you my son? You buried our sons.” Those gathered held up pictures of the victims of the blast, which left about 6,000 people injured.

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