Amin Zahed

Amin was born in Tarik Jdide. He grew up in the streets and neighborhoods of Beirut, where he completed middle school. He was passionate about mechanics and learned its techniques at 17 years old. He was known as the “fixer” and could fix anything you think of. But because of the economic situation, he gave up, and worked as a driver for different companies, until he settled with a company working at the Port of Beirut, twenty years ago.

He started off as a driver, and because of his hard work, he was promoted to team leader, managing more than fifty workers. He wanted a bright future for his son whom he wanted to become an army officer.

Amin was a great decision maker. He was also smart, witty, and very sociable.

When the first fire struck at the port, Amin rushed to evacuate Mohamad Tleiss and Nour Doughan who also passed away that day. He did not want to leave his friends to burn in the fire. He also took a live photo of the flames and shared it on social media.

Amin did not call his family like he usually does, and when they heard the news about an explosion in the Port of Beirut, his sister tried to call him but there was no network. She called a relative who worked with Amin, and he told her to relax and that he saw him after the blast. Unfortunately, that was not true, and he was just trying to ease her suffering. Half an hour later, there was still nothing about Amin. His sister and wife went to the port looking for him, but they were not allowed to enter.

They looked in hospitals and couldn’t find him… For six long days he was still missing. During these six days the family was confused and checked three different bodies trying to identify their own. But Amin had a specific mark on his leg, which led them to hesitate before they could confirm it’s him. They waited for the DNA results, and on the seventh day a match was found at Al-Zahraa Hospital. His hand was on his head as if he was trying to stop the bleeding. His leg was cut off his body, and was later found in Machghara Governmental Hospital.