Outrage in Lebanon after video of three men sexually assaulting young Syrian boy

Three Lebanese men sexually assaulted and raped a Syrian child, according to a video that went viral on social media after one of the men filmed it while laughing.

The video, which was shot in the town of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, showed the trio beating the child and forcing him to engage in sexual acts with them.

The boy’s mother said she did not know about the incident, and when she asked her son, he said that he was subjected to this several times in the past two years.

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“Yesterday, my brother-in-law showed me the tragedy after it spread online. I couldn’t bare seeing my child suffer,” the boy’s mother told An-Nahar Lebanese newspaper.

When she asked him about what he went through, “he said he was raped by seven men in the juice shop. They’re all relatives and from the town of Sohmor.”

“Once, one of them held him while the other one raped him,” said the mother, citing what her son told her.
The boy also said that he was psychologically and physically tortured, in addition to being threatened not to share what happened with anyone.

The mother called on children rights organizations to take up her son’s case and called on the state to implement justice and arrest all those involved.

Local media reported that the Syrian boy worked in a juice shop and that his Lebanese mother, who’s divorced from his Syrian father, owns a vegetable shop.

Pictures allegedly showing the suspects were shared online by social media activists and users, who called on the Lebanese authorities to bring them to justice and punish them.

In an interview with Lebanese television MTV, the head of the Union for the Protection of Juveniles in Lebanon, Amira Sukkar, said that the necessary measures were taken.

“We reported the incident to the police and spoke to the Public Prosecution and began the investigations,” Sukkar said. “The boy feels some kind of stigma now, he feels like he’s guilty of this crime.”

Joe Maalouf, a representative of the Union also told Syria TV that the Lebanese judiciary identified the suspects and began an investigation.

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