Nancy Ajram slams Beirut airport over 'neglect' of mothers and infants

'Is this the Lebanon that we glorify in history books? Is this the Lebanon that you want to encourage tourists to visit?' she wrote in an impassioned series of tweets

Nancy Ajram, pictured here at Mall of the Emirates last year, has spoken up about long queues at Beirut airport. Antonie Robertson / The National
Nyree McFarlane
Jul 04, 2019
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Nancy Ajram is one of Lebanon's biggest pop stars, and she vented her frustration over Beirut Airport's immigration queues to her 13.3 million Twitter followers late on Wednesday night.

"I'm not talking as an artist, but as a Lebanese citizen," she wrote as a caption to a video showing herself and her daughter waiting in a long line. "My daughter is five months old, and has been on my shoulder crying for an hour. We've been waiting since early morning at my country's airport. And there are a lot of other women like me."

"Is it fine that there's so much neglect of our citizens in our own airport?" she asks. "Is it fine that we're this far from the simplest of our human rights?"

In another tweet, she writes that "in many countries around the world, pregnant women and infants have exceptions [at airports], but not here."

She then goes on to ask, "is this the Lebanon that we glorify in history books? Is this the Lebanon that you want to encourage tourists to visit? Our small kids are seeing and understanding the defects, and you don't even see it."

She ends her Twitter thread with, "we have been silent and silent, then what? Where are you taking us?"

Ajram also commented on the bad smell at the airport in the series of tweets.

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Last month it was announced that Beirut airport was doing away with arrival cards that people had to fill in before going to passport control to "facilitate flows", but there was clearly still a long waiting time on Wednesday night.

Ajram is undeniably a superstar in her native Lebanon and beyond: she has been in the business for two decades, consistently outsells her peers and tirelessly tours the world.

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