Beirut, Lebanon – Over the last 11 months, as air raids hit villages near their home, Lakmani and her mother Sonia decided to stay in their south Lebanese village of Jouaiya, about a 25-minute drive east of Tyre and a little under an hour from the southern border.
“There were some raids not far away,” Lakmani, 26, said.
“And they broke the sound barrier a few times,” her 45-year-old mother Sonia added.
Sonia came from Sri Lanka to Lebanon to work as a cleaner shortly before giving birth to Lakmani, who has lived her whole life in Lebanon and works as a private tutor.
“But then Monday bombs started falling and we said: ‘OK, we should go,’” Lakmani told Al Jazeera, sitting on a park bench in downtown Beirut, where she and her mother now sleep.
That day, September 23, would go on to become the deadliest day since the end of …