Deadly explosion at Beirut’s port comes amid coronavirus pandemic and economic meltdown
Lebanon has been crippled by a number of long-running, seemingly intractable crises for decades. The country endured a devastating 15-year civil war and has often been caught in the crossfire of regional conflicts.
But the deadly explosion that ripped through the Beirut port on Tuesday – which comes amid the coronavirus pandemic and an economic meltdown – may be the calamity that brings a beleaguered nation to its knees.
Lebanon has recorded more than 5,000 cases of coronavirus, with 65 dead. While the numbers are comparatively low, they have spiked recently and spread to new parts of the country. Despite a five-day government-imposed lockdown that has just ended, doctors have warned the country’s fragile health-system is already “beyond its capacity”.
“Intensive care rooms at Rafik Hariri University Hospital are now full and, if the situation remains the same during the coming days, the hospital will not be able to accommodate the cases requiring intensive care,” Dr Osman Itani, a pulmonologist and intensive care specialist, told Arab News on Sunday.
“The number of cases currently exceeds 100 per day, and this is a big problem that cannot be addressed by the health system as it is beyond its capacity.”
Lebanon’s health ministry reported the coronavirus was spreading rapidly because lockdown restrictions had been flouted, with people attending weddings, parties, religious services and other public gatherings.
October last year saw people in at least 70 towns across Lebanon protest against perceived government corruption, austerity measures and a lack of basic infrastructure – tap water is not safe to drink and electricity blackouts occur daily.
The protests, which were fiercely non-sectarian, paralysed the country and led to the resignation of Saad Hariri as prime minister.
However, little has changed since his exit, with blackouts worsening, the economic crisis deepening and food prices climbing by up to 80%.
Lebanon is enduring an economic crisis that has crippled the country, driven thousands overseas and sparked widespread protests against what is seen as a corrupt and incompetent political system.
Nearly half of the country’s population lives below the poverty line and 35% are out of work, according to official statistics.
In March, for the first time in its history, Lebanon announced it was defaulting on its debts. It has a national debt of $92bn – nearly 170% of its GDP – one of the highest debt ratios in the world.
In May the country launched negotiations with the International Monetary Fund aimed at securing vital aid, under a plan to rescue the economy adopted by the government. But talks have since stalled.
As Martin Chulov wrote in the Guardian last month, many in Lebanon face a bleak future:
Since March, prices of most goods have nearly tripled, while the value of the national currency has fallen by 80% and much of the country has ground to a halt. Those who still have work are surviving month to month. Malls are empty. Poverty is soaring, crime is rising, and streets are incendiary.
The country has defaulted on one bond payment and a second is due soon. A fire sale of state assets is being mooted as a fallback. After that, there is little left to trade, except human capital, which is leaving Lebanon en masse.
The destruction of Beirut’s port will devastate the country further. Lebanon has two land borders: one with war-torn Syria, the other with Israel, with which Lebanon is technically at war.
Lebanon also relies heavily on imports for its food supply. Tobias Schneider, a researcher at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, says that Lebanon relies on imports for 90% of its wheat consumption – wheat is used to make the country’s staple flatbreads – most of which enters through a single terminal:
A complex and bloody civil war, fought along political and sectarian lines, raged between 1975 and 1990, killing 120,000 and exiling one million, before parts of Lebanon were occupied by both Syria and Israel for close to two decades. Foreign troops finally withdrew in 2005.
The Iran-backed Shia movement Hezbollah, which fought a month-long war against Israel in 2006, emerged as a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.
And in 2013 Hezbollah announced it was fighting alongside the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, further dividing the Lebanese political scene and leading to sanctions that reduced the amount of Gulf money, in the form of tourism and remittances, flowing into the country. The global financial crisis also impacted remittences, which are an important source of income – Lebanese living overseas outnumber those in the country – as well as the amount of aid available.
The Syrian conflict has sporadically spilled over into Lebanon, with several attacks rocking Beirut and the regions.
But the most visible impact of the Syrian war in Lebanon, a country of around 4.5 million people, has been the influx of an estimated 1.5 million refugees. Lebanon and international organisations have on several occasions sounded the alarm over the economic and social burden posed by this influx into a state ill-equipped to assist them.
With Agence-France Presse
