Friday, August 7, 2020

By Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer

It is sad that it takes a giant explosion deep within the heart of the nation’s capital for the world to finally start to ask “what’s going on in Lebanon?”

Tuesday’s deadly blast, which at the time of writing, 135 people have been confirmed killed has caused devastation I do not believe we will ever truly be able to know the cost. Not even the pictures do justice to the scale of the damage the blast has caused – not just structural but humanitarian.

Protests against the economic crisis gripping Lebanon are in their second year. Unemployment is high, accusations of corruption are rife. The economic crisis has been further compounded by the COVID-19 crisis. Lebanon recently entered a second lockdown again.

As we saw from the blasts, the hospitals that were not damaged were having to turn away many injured patients as they did not have the beds due to how many coronavirus patients they were treating. Some of the injured had to be treated in car parks, others were sent further afield.

Sadly some choose to scapegoat the nation’s 1.7 million refugees living in Lebanon. Lebanon have the largest per capita population of Syrian refugees – most live in abject poverty.

I hope, that now the world is paying attention to the problems in Lebanon, it keeps paying attention and helps NGOs like Syria Relief to treat the human symptoms of the troubles afflicting the people of this beautiful country.