⚰The Mar Mikhael events: "Black Sunday" in Chiyah

On the evening of 27 January 2008 young men blocked the road at the Mar Mikhael church in Chiyah in protest at the power cuts, and unknown snipers fired on the demonstrators from the rooftops of Ain el-Remmaneh; the first to fall was the Amal Movement's local official Ahmad Hamzeh, then two Hezbollah members, and when a party ambulance arrived the paramedic "Hajj Fida" was killed. The army closed the road, then an M113 armoured personnel carrier set off from the Mar Mikhael church to the area of the Aytam station on the old Sidon road and fired at random on the shops, raising the final toll to eight martyrs, four of them from Hezbollah, and more than fifty wounded. Hezbollah held Siniora's government responsible for "every drop of blood" and demanded that the army command announce the results of the investigation, Amal denied any connection to the demonstration, and Siniora declared national mourning. In May 2013 the military court handed down reduced sentences against 68 defendants, among them three officers (fines for two majors and a brigadier) after the victims' families waived their claims, and the defence held that the forensic report had found no army bullets in the bodies.