NBC: 'We're on the road to collapse': Inside Lebanon's crippling economic crisis
Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis in modern history — NBC News spoke to people living through it.
BEIRUT — Mohammad Kekhia stares into his nearly empty fridge. His 14-year-old son, Hassan, stands beside him, peering in hopefully.
To Hassan’s disappointment, his father closes the door without retrieving any food. There is not enough. Not if they want to have anything left for tomorrow.
“We are eating once every two days if we are lucky,” Kekhia says.
Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis in modern history. The lira has lost over 80 percent of its value since October. Unemployment is soaring. Prices are skyrocketing. Hunger is spreading across this tiny Mediterranean country, known worldwide for its cuisine.
The collapse of the Lebanese currency has had knock-on effects in neighboring Syria, which has long used Lebanon as a route around sanctions. And the crisis has left Lebanon, a strategic country regionally, open to intervention from other countries as a bailout from the International Monetary Fund grows more unlikely.
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Update #1: ‘We've got nothing’: Millions in Lebanon struggle with cost of living amid economic collapse (Fracne 24)
Update #2: Lebanon's economy minister says downturn has turned country into a 'failed state' (SKY News)
WNU Editor: Why is Lebanon in the situation that it is? Corruption, political and sectarian divisions, and having a national debt that was no longer sustainable .... Lebanon: Why the country is in crisis (BBC).
