Lebanon's economic and humanitarian disasters leave citizens to fend for themselves - PBS NewsHour
Really heart wrenching.
For the past several years, Lebanon has been in economic freefall. Its currency is close to worthless; its government is fractured and ineffective; there is almost no electric power, and there is less security. Lebanon's people are suffering. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen reports from Tripoli on a country in collapse.
Abdelhakim has watched over Lebanon's historic cedar for nearly two decades. As a ranger in the country's mountainous north, he considers the trees the emblem of their flag, many of them hundreds of years old, sacred. But this past winter, they started to disappear. As Lebanon's economic catastrophe escalates, the cost of basic goods like fuel has gone through the roof. The only option now for most to cook and stay warm is firewood. Too expensive to buy, Lebanese are chopping it down themselves.
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Fuel isn't the only essential that Lebanon can no longer provide for its people. The economy here has collapsed, sending the currency value crashing from 1,500 lira to the dollar to 30,000. Meanwhile, salaries remain unchanged. Everyone who can has left the country. But for those stuck here, this is no longer a crisis situation. This is their new reality. They are now facing a future in which the most basic necessities, power, transport, even food, are luxuries. In May, for the first time since the crisis began, Lebanon held an election, a chance for change at last, or is it? Many Lebanese were apathetic, more focused on survival than a government they feel lives in another world.
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Down the mountain, at 11:00 a.m. each morning, families wait patiently at the gates of this food bank in the northern city of Tripoli. Robert Ayoub has helped needy families here for years. The city is Lebanon's poorest .But in the past few months, their numbers have ballooned so fast, the kitchen is struggling to cope. The need has gone from 40 meals a day to 600. One bag of milk, one gallon of oil, and something else like this, those three things cost 900,000 Lebanese pounds... Families who used to donate to the kitchen now come to use it. With donations drying up and demand always increasing, they have had to drastically reduce what they can offer.
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Rabih walks five miles back and forth each day from his home to the kitchen. This small bag will have to last his family of five a week.
He's grateful for whatever they can give. Without it, his family would starve.
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When they don't get enough, they have to close for weeks at a time. By the end of last year, the U.N. estimated nearly half of Lebanese were food-insecure, meaning they don't have enough to eat to stay healthy. And that number only looks set to grow. Salaries aren't going up. The economy is still going down. And people hear nothing is changing. So what do you see as the future? Can people survive here just on charity forever? Your donations are reducing.
More..
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/lebanons-economic-and-humanitarian-disasters-leave-citizens-to-fend-for-themselves
