A southern Lebanese village is plunged into mourning for six of its people, believed to be among 11 Lebanese nationals who disappeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and are feared murdered.
"We are sad when our children emigrate to earn their keep far away. What can we say when they die in this way and we cannot even recover their bodies," Abdel Rassul Nasrallah, 70, told AFP.
The white-bearded man clung to the arm of his only surviving son, Hassan, having lost hope of seeing his other two -- Nabih, 45, and Reda, 41 -- again.
The village of 12,000 people, draped in black flags, is also mourning Mohammad Khanafer, 50; his twin 16-year-old sons Hassan and Hussein; and Ibrahim Khanafer, 22.
To the sound of verses from the Koran broadcast from the local mosque, some 3,000 residents staged a sit-in in the village prayer hall, bitterly denouncing the perceived unconcern of the Lebanese government.
Talal Fayyad, lawyer for the families of the missing, said in Beirut earlier Friday that the 11 were abducted because they were neighbors of a suspect in the January assassination of DRC president Laurent Kabila.
"None of them had any political activities in the Congo," he said.
"We believe that some 11 have been liquidated in jail," Fayyad added. "We believe one or two might still be detained."
"This is a terrible tragedy. The families want to know the truth. If their relatives have been killed, they want their bodies," he said.
"These men have not been tried, they could not even defend themselves. They never appeared before any judicial authority," he said.
On Thursday, Lebanon strongly criticized the DRC for failing to disclose the fate of the missing Lebanese and asked to participate in the investigation.
Beirut also sent a top civil servant to Kinshasa on Wednesday to seek information.
"It's two months since I have been in contact with Lebanese officials, to no avail," Abdel Nasrallah said angrily.
A cousin, Yussef Nasrallah, added: "The state must act and assume its responsibilities. We want the bodies, we want to know why they were killed."
The Hizbollah movement, which led the guerrilla war to end the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, has also weighed in on the case.
In a statement Friday, it condemned the DRC, calling on it to explain what happened, punish those responsible, and guarantee the safety of the 3,000 to 4,000-strong Lebanese community in the country.
Hizbollah also called for an inquiry to discover the level of negligence in Lebanon itself and punish those at fault.
The estimated 200,000 Lebanese in Africa -- who live largely by trading, including the hotel and catering industries -- are sometimes singled out during times of social, ethnic and political violence.
They have become especially vulnerable in countries where the national economy has deteriorated, and many have either returned to Lebanon or moved out of Africa.
The largest Lebanese communities include up to 70,000 in Ivory Coast, 40,000 in South Africa, 25,000 in Senegal and 20,000 in Nigeria.
The Abidjan-based African representative of the World Lebanese Union, Nagib Zaher, told AFP that the Lebanese community in DRC tended to keep a low profile in the turbulent country -- AYNATTA, Lebanon (AFP)
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