Aram Ter-Sarkissian

Aram, the youngest of six siblings, grew up in Bourj Hammoud, where he also attended school, he soon dropped out to work with his brother in zincography in downtown Beirut, before the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War.

Aram was a modest, kind hearted, generous man. He was only married for less than a year, and then moved back with his mother, Mariam Nazarian. When his mom passed away in 1995, he was in shock and battled depression, as he was the most pampered, and the closest to her among his siblings. After her passing, he moved back and forth between his brother’s and sister’s for two years. He finally settled in Bourj Hammoud, and worked at an electronics shop.

78-year old Aram would daily go out for a walk around Medawwar and Mar Mikhael, and it never occurred to him that the August 4 explosion would be the end of his life. On that fateful Tuesday evening, his brother tried to call him, but he never answered his phone. He was missing for months without any bit of news about his whereabouts, and nothing could ease the worries and anxiety of his old brother Krikor, who suffers from chronic health conditions. Weirdly enough, Aram’s name was on the explosion’s victims list, but it was later dismissed from updated lists issued by the Ministry of Health. Aram’s family was familiar with his disappearance every now and then, but this time, it was extremely suspicious.

Aram’s story is one of the most heartbreaking stories of the blast’s victims, mainly on a humanitarian level... “To honor the dead is to bury them”, however Aram’s decaying corpse remained in Machghara Governmental Hospital’s morgue for six months. It didn’t occur to the hospital’s staff that he was one of the explosion’s victims. Aram’s family would not receive a burnt body, or the remains of a body, but a decaying, decomposing corpse after six months of his passing, so he could finally rest in peace.