Netizens have been angered by a video showing two Kenyan women being subjected to severe physical assault by a Lebanese military official.
Sources indicate that the brutal attack against the Kenyan nationals took place on June 17, 2018, in Burj Hammoud, Lebanon.
The attacker, said to be a military official in civilian clothes, is seen kicking the defenseless ladies and grabbing them by the hair in the middle of a road.
At some point, more attackers join the scuffle and continue assaulting the women who are pinned down on the tarmac road.
This is the moment two Kenyan women were beaten by a 'Lebanese official' in Beirut pic.twitter.com/LhpoweLt6k
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) June 25, 2018
A news agency Middle East Eye indicated that it took the intervention of police officers 15 minutes later to bring the violent attack to an end.
Shortly after, the victims were issued with a deportation order for being in the country illegally.
On their part, however, the women indicated that the officer had swerved his car on them and a heated confrontation culminated in him physically assaulting them.
According to a Lebanese publication, Daily Star, the Lebanese Army issued a statement a few days later refuting the claims that the attacker was one of their members.
"The two women who were drunk assaulted an Army member who was with his wife, and hit him with a bottle on his head," the statement indicated.
"This prompted one of the civilians (present at the scene) to intervene and hit the two women," concluding that the attackers were arrested and detained by Military Police.
The acting Lebanon Justice Minister Salim Jreissati equally issued a statement denouncing the incident: "It is important that the justice minister announces to the public that the (incident) of a soldier hitting two Kenyan nationals and harming them with others' participation was investigated at the Burj Hammoud police station where the facts were documented."
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Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke, an official from the Consulate of Lebanon in Nairobi indicated that intervention in such cases of violence may be delayed especially where the victims travelled to the foreign countries through unregistered agencies or illegally.
The video has, however, sparked outrage with netizens reading racial discrimination undertones in the attack.
