MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Lebanon's free fall collapse will echo for
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Lebanese Face Threat of Widespread Hunger After Beirut Explosion
Nazih Osseiran and Raja Abdulrahim | Photographs by Sam Tarling for The
Wall Street Journal
9-11 minutes
BEIRUT—In the wake of the massive explosion that devastated large parts
of the Lebanese capital, a new danger is stalking the struggling
country: hunger.
The early August blast, which killed more than 150 people and displaced
hundreds of thousands from their homes, destroyed the grain silos
storing most of the country’s wheat supplies and badly damaged the sea
port through which 85% of its food imports arrive.
The destruction also threatens to deepen an economic downturn in Lebanon
that has already sent unemployment soaring, sparked runaway inflation
and led to an 80% depreciation of the local currency, the Lebanese pound.
“I just want to drop dead,” said Mohammad Munzir, 48 years old, who had
to close his fragrance and toy store last year because of the tanking
economy. “The country is frozen after the explosion.”
Mohammad Munzir can barely feed his five children selling perfume from a
store owned by his brother.
Even before the catastrophe, Mr. Munzir was struggling to feed his five
children. On some nights, he said, family dinner is a single can of fava
beans shared among the entire household. Mr. Munzir said he has lost 44
pounds over the past year, as his income has shrunk amid the economic
crisis.
He had been surviving by hawking counterfeit perfume outside a store run
by his brother. Now, he said, he hasn’t made a sale in three weeks.
“Even if I made some money to buy food,” he said, “things are so
expensive now, we can’t afford anything.”
Aid agencies warn that hunger could become the norm in what used to be a
middle-income nation. Before the blast, the World Bank had estimated
that 22% of the Lebanese could be pushed into extreme poverty and 45%
below the poverty line.
“Already we were in a situation where in many families the parents and
the children would go to bed hungry, but it was a manageable hunger,”
said Jad Sakr, Lebanon country director for the charity Save the
Children. He said he worries that outright starvation is now a possibility.
The United Nations has projected that Lebanon will need more than $47
million to ensure food security in the immediate future, calling for
food rations, cash assistance and wheat imports.
Countries have pledged $297.8 million to help rebuild Lebanon’s capital,
but France, which hosted the U.N.-backed virtual donor conference,
didn’t give an overall breakdown of how the funds would be spent.
The U.N.’s World Food Program is requesting $250 million in aid for
Lebanon for the next six months, and has warned Lebanese
politicians—beset by large-scale street protests over alleged corruption
and ineptitude—not to get in the way.
“We don’t have time for games to be played,” said the WFP’s chief
executive, David Beasley. “Donors will not step up if they see
politicians getting in the way of humanitarian aid.” Lebanese officials
have been so far responsive to the WFP’s conditions, he added.
The WFP is working to bring in a three-month supply of wheat flour and
grains for bakeries and mills, with the first shipment due to arrive in
the next 10 days. The agency estimates that current wheat flour reserves
in Lebanon will last only six weeks.
Food shipments are being rerouted to the northern Lebanese port of
Tripoli, which can only handle a fraction of the Beirut port’s capacity.
Some aid shipments that were earmarked for Syria via Beirut have been
diverted to Syrian ports.
Rescue workers outside a damaged grain silo at Beirut’s port, where
thousands of tons of wheat and corn were lost in the blast.
A woman showed her empty refrigerator in Beirut. An estimated 45% of
Lebanese were at risk of falling below the poverty line even before the
explosion.
To restore access to sufficient food supplies, Lebanese authorities must
first clear out the debris from the Beirut port, a $30 million endeavor,
according to Mr. Beasley. He estimated that such clearing operations
could be completed in two weeks.
One of the most enduring images to come out of the explosion has been
the 15,000 tons of wheat and corn spilling out of the port’s bombed-out
silos, as rescuers combed through the obliterated food stocks searching
for survivors.
Maurice Saade, Lebanon representative of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture
Organization, said 15,000 tons is actually a fraction of the silo’s full
120,000-ton capacity. The reason the silos were relatively empty is
because of Lebanon’s lack of access to U.S. dollars amid a banking crisis.
The Lebanese government subsidizes the price of wheat, helping to keep
the price of bread, a staple food in the country, stable as many other
foods have doubled or tripled in cost in recent months.
Children collected food donations near the site of the explosion.
The government had begun to subsidize other staples, such as rice, sugar
and cooking oil, but didn’t fully roll out the subsidies before the
blast, said Mohammed Nasser, acting country director for the
International Rescue Committee. It is unclear whether those subsidies
would now continue.
Grocery-store owners have been unable to keep up with inflation,
sometimes increasing the price of certain goods two or three times in
one day as the pound collapsed against the dollar. Some brands have
entirely disappeared from shelves, replaced with cheaper knockoffs.
“People here are disgusted by the politicians,” said Hussein Fawaz, at
an antigovernment protest days after the blast, his eyes red from the
tear gas. He has an electrical engineering degree but hasn’t been able
to find work for two years. “People are hungry and nothing is working.”
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conversation below.
Nongovernmental groups and private citizens are stepping into the void.
In a parking lot in the shadow of one of many buildings shattered by the
blast, Melissa Fathallah and her group, Baytna Baytak, or Our Home is
Your Home, have set up a tent to receive food donations. Restaurants
give food and individuals, both in Lebanon and abroad, have sent food
and money.
Baytna Baytak was launched earlier this year to help house front-line
medical workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Since the blast, the
group expanded its aid work to include cleanup, renovation assessments
and food distribution.
Ms. Fathallah, a hospitality graduate, interrupts her conversations to
yell out instructions: “I have six elderly that I need to feed. Oh wait,
no, eight.”
A volunteer for Our Home is Your Home gathered donated food last week to
be delivered to needy families in Beirut.
The U.N., while applauding such grass-roots efforts, warned that they
aren’t sustainable long-term—and that the Lebanese state must step up.
That, however, has become even more of a distant prospect in the wake of
the recent resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his
cabinet after days of protests—something that could lead to more
political paralysis.
“What we’ve seen in the past few days is very heartwarming,” said Save
the Children’s Mr. Sakr of the many efforts of charities and ordinary
people to feed the hungry. “But aid will never replace a nationally led
response. It can’t replace the state.”
Write to Raja Abdulrahim at raja.abdulrahim-at-wsj.com
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