The 1983 massacre of Communist activists -

Massacre

The 1983 massacre of Communist activists occurred in the city of Tripoli specifically in the neighborhood of Mina, which was the stronghold of the Lebanese Communist Party. The massacre was carried out by members of an armed group called Tawhid, an Islamist militia with ties to the PLO and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, created in mid-1982 with an explicitly anti-Syrian regime agenda. On October 12, 1983, Tawhid launched a full-scale assault on the Communist Party's headquarters in Mina. The timeline of the massacre includes clashes starting on the evening of October 11, followed by a ceasefire, and then resumed fighting on October 12, resulting in many casualties. Eyewitness accounts suggest that a massacre occurred during the ceasefire, with Tawhid members lining up surviving Communist activists and shooting them. The exact number of victims remains disputed with estimates ranging from 40 reported by L’Orient Le Jour, citing Voix du Liban (Sawt Lubnan), to around 20, as indicated in a subsequent detailed report on the events. Additionally, conflicting accounts exist concerning forced disappearances, with some alleging that bodies were disposed of in the sea, although definitive evidence of this practice remains elusive.