by David Frattini
The UN speaks of the worst crisis since the middle of the last century: 200% inflation (salad costs 700 times more), savings pulverized, withdrawals blocked. The story of Sali, armed with a fake gun, tells the agony of the middle class
In mid-September, Sali Hafez walked into the Beirut branch of his bank, went to the cashier and asked for $12,000 to be withdrawn from the account. All the staff know her, they didn’t recognize her look as she held the gun: the anger and desperation were real, the gun fake. For weeks she had tried to persuade the director that she could withdraw more than the €200 a month in Lebanese pounds that she and other customers were being granted by a cash-strapped government. In court – she took after a fugitive who made her a celebrity – police said she needed the money to pay for her sister’s cancer treatment, and the judges fined her and banned her from leaving the country country for six months.
Ban on leaving the country? He has no money left
To put it mildly and at times ironically, the Lebanese middle class cannot afford to travel, as the incompetence and corruption of politicians, together with the immobility of financial institutions, have plunged the country into what the United Nations says is its worst crisis since the middle of the last century. to the charge of massive human rights violations because this financial tsunami is a disaster created by the administrators in three to four years. Today Sali is the symbol of the resistance and on the day of his release he warned the bank managers in front of the camera: Now give me the rest of my money so we don’t have to repeat the scene. His action has already found about twenty imitators (even a parliamentarian), some of them with real weapons in a country where the civil war has lasted fifteen years and even after 1990 the factions that share power remain armed.
The decline and exorbitant cost of a salad
200 percent inflation has pulverized the value of savings, the usual unidentified people moved funds abroad before the bank freeze was imposed, the majority are hoping for international aid, but it remains tied to political stability as long as it can be found is . For the 80 percent living below the poverty line, the economic index for fattush lettuce continues to deteriorate. the simplest and most common: cucumbers, tomatoes and fried bread, which few can now afford because it costs 700 times as much. (Read more after the photo)
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THE LEBANESE REPUBLIC – For four centuries, Lebanon (the area of just 10,452 square kilometers) was under the control of the Ottoman Empire and the former French protectorate, which became independent in 1943
THE CIVIL WAR – The country was torn apart by civil war from 1975 to 1990: on one side the Maronite Christians and on the other side a coalition of Palestinians allied with Lebanese Shias, Sunnis and Druze. The confrontation officially ended with the Ta’if Accords of 1989
THE ECONOMIC CRISIS – Lebanon was declared bankrupt in 2020. On August 4 of the same year, the explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut almost destroyed: 300,000 were left homeless and 270 people died
Nov 26, 2022 (Modified Nov 26, 2022 | 2:44pm)
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