VIDEO: Lebanese group brutally assaults two Kenyan women

Last month, a horrifying video circulated on Lebanese social media depicting an attack on two Kenyan women in the streets of Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon, sparking an intense public outcry.

In the two-minute video, a man is seen violently pulling both women by their hair while shouting at two passersby who appear to be black. He then suddenly attacks the victims physically with the help of a woman, before a group of people join in.

According to The Guardian, both female victims - identified as Rosa and Shamila - were arrested following the incident on June 17 and later appeared in a military court where they faced deportation threats.

The attackers, who included a Lebanese officer, were also arrested.

The video of the attack amassed over 183,000 views and was first posted by Lebanese Facebook page 'Wen El Dawle' (Where is the government), an account that routinely shares videos showing assault, racism, and corruption.

In a statement issued by the Anti-Racism Movement (ARM), a local NGO targeting institutional racism, the two women were first provoked by a military officer who hit them from behind with his car.

Due to the hit, one of the women fell to the ground. She eventually got up and confronted the driver of the vehicle. That's when the perpetrator stepped out of the car, attacked them both, and received additional "help" from pedestrians.

The beating only stopped when police arrived and detained the victims along with the attackers.

After the video went viral, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces responded to the video, asking the Facebook page to "not jump to conclusions before checking the accuracy of the information".

The case circulated online, leading the spokesman for Lebanon’s Directorate of General Security to state that Shamila's deportation will be reprieved, for now, The Guardian reported.

Following the news, ARM wrote that "There is still a chance another deportation order could be issued, so we urge general security to halt the deportation and allow Shamila to resolve her legal status and hold the perpetrators of this assault accountable".

"It's a shame our racism is much more prevalent than foreigners but we pretend to be the victim when someone is racist towards us ... nothing can justify what they're doing, even if she was wrong in any way." 

According to recent statistics, the death rate of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon has doubled over the past few years. 

The latest figures from Lebanon's General Security - the country's intelligence agency - reveal an alarming increase in domestic worker deaths from one case per week in 2008, to two cases per week in 2017.

"The bodies of 138 migrant domestic workers were repatriated between January 2016 and April this year," IRIN reported.

"Many of the deaths are suicides or botched escape attempts in which migrant women choose to jump off buildings rather than continue working in abusive and exploitative situations." 

Last month, a Sudanese student was rejected from a nursery in Lebanon due to racist complaints it received from the parents of other children.

"A woman noticed my kid was black and told the staff, 'If you enroll him at the garderie [nursery], I will pull my son out and let all the other mothers here take their kids out with mine'," the father of the child told the Daily Star.

According to a 2016 study by finance website 'Insider Monkey', Lebanon was considered the second most-racist country in the world at the time, after India. 

Furthermore, the survey found that 36.3 percent of Lebanese do not want neighbors from another race and 64.3 percent have witnessed racist behavior.

The country notably demonstrates discrimination against foreign domestic workers, who are bound by a controversial kafala system, "a sponsorship structure which links a valid immigration status to one single employer."