Lebanese remember civil war, as families of 'disappeared' still ask for justice

April 13 is a gloomy date for the Lebanese seeing as it marks the start of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

Today, families of the disappeared in Lebanon’s Civil War gathered in Bayt Beirut -- a historic museum that commemorates the civil war -- to ask for justice, as an independent national commission has failed to investigate what happened to the disappeared and to question former officials.

An estimated 17,000 Lebanese were kidnapped or "disappeared" during the civil war of 1975-90, according to Human Rights Watch.

HRW also reports that "scores of citizens and Palestinians disappeared in Lebanon after 1990 during Syria’s military presence in the country, and are known or believed to have been transferred to detention in Syria."

"At the end of the war, the Taef accord made no mention to the fate of the thousands of disappeared. In 1991, the militias were disbanded without being constrained to provide any information about the persons they had kidnapped or release any prisoners they may be holding," the Committee of the Families of Kidnapped and Disappeared says.

The main goal of the families is to find and release the people still detained in Syria and Israel, and to receive the remains of the dead in order to bury them.

They have contacted officials since 1982, "Prime Ministers, Presidents, Ministers of Justice, the Commission for Human Rights in the Parliament," Committee founder Wadad Halwani said.

In 2014, Lebanon ruled that families had the right to the truth about what happened to their missing relatives (right to know), but according to the Committee’s activists, the investigations were "superficial and fragmented."

Meanwhile politicians like Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, ex-PM Saad Hariri, and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea posted tweets about the civil war anniversary.

"The suffering of the Lebanese is being repeated in different ways... We will not forget," tweeted Hariri.

Geagea posted a tweet that said "we remember it, while others would love to repeat it."

For his part, Bassil stressed the importance of protecting civil peace through justice, freedom and dialogue.