Few minutes after the unfortunate Verdun bombing occurred yesterday night, everyone started sharing a security instruction supposedly sent by the Canadian Embassy and the UN to their staff “warning them to stay away from all Beirut restaurants, avoid going to Beirut and in particular avoid visiting Hamra areas”.

I asked some Lebanese-Canadian friends I know and none of them got the message. I also checked their website and didn’t find anything. It turned out to be a fake one as clarified by the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon below. I am not sure about the UN though.

What’s funny is that a lot of Lebanese were outraged by the fact that foreign services or embassies would know more than us about potential terror threats in Lebanon. In all cases, I think someone needs to investigate where that rumor came from because all the local media shared it without even checking. Till then, I recommend you check the official websites of every embassy for travel advice:

The UK has a very accurate and up-to-date travel advice section [Gov.uk], the US Embassy as well [usembassy.gov] and the Canadian Embassy of course [travel.gc.ca].