Conflict Incident Report

Residents of the Nabatieh town of Mayfadoun Tuesday staged a protest against a local judge’s decision to reopen a nearby landfill. Nabatieh Judge of Urgent Matters Ahmed Mezher issued a decision to reopen the landfill located between Mayfadoun and the nearby town of Shoukeen temporarily for one week before it is closed entirely. The Mayfadoun municipality filed a complaint soon afterward to demand the site remain closed in view of the environmental damage and health problems they said it had caused by polluting nearby groundwater used by the town. At a protest in the town Tuesday, locals raised banners saying “don’t dump garbage here,” and “we need to find a radical solution to this carcinogenic landfill.” Protestors also called for the “simple solution” of sorting garbage at the source.

Lebanon has been immersed in a widespread garbage crisis since 2015, with hundreds of random dumps springing up across the country after the Naameh landfill was shut due to protests by locals after years of being over capacity.