Mohamad Tlais
Mohamad lies in a grave in the village of Shaath. He was a few months short of his 43rd birthday when he was killed in a massive explosion.
Mohamad did not hold university, and he worked different jobs, before he finally settled with a cargo load and unload company at the Port of Beirut, where he was appointed Assistant Operations Manager.
He met his coworker Christiane Khoury and they fell in love at first sight. Christiane's father disapproved of their love story and stood against their marriage. Mohamad tried restlessly to change his mind, but it was impossible… Mohamad and Christiane declared their revolution against outdated traditions and tied the knot.
Christiane's father was only angry for four days, he discovered qualities in Mohamad that every father would wish to find in his son in law, and he invited the newlyweds to live with him in his house.
On August 4, Christiane left to work early in the morning while Mohamad was still asleep; he was on the afternoon's shift. She dropped her kids Cynthia an Alexis at the nursery and reported to her post.
At 5:30 PM, Christiane called her husband on her way home and complained about the traffic, and asked him if he could pick up the kids at the nursery. Mohamad could not pick them up as he was already late for his shift. He went to the port, and a huge explosion happened. There was no news of Mohamad.
The family spent the next ten days looking for him in hospitals; they even reached Damascus hospitals when they heard a few wounded people were transferred there for treatment.
On the third day, they identified a dead corpse at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, and thought it was Mohamad. They were shocked to receive a call from the French embassy, while on their way to the Bekaa to prepare their son's funeral, telling them that the body belonged to a French national, and asked them to return it. They looked carefully at the corpse, and indeed it wasn’t Mohamad. They were hopeful, again, that he might be alive somewhere. But a DNA test for an unidentified dead body, confirmed his death. He was kept in a body bag outside the morgue of Al-Zahraa Hospital. His brother could not believe the DNA results, and he requested they repeat them twice to prove it was Mohamad.