Demonstrators in Saida block a road with burning dumpsters. (Credit: Mountasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Starting at dawn Monday, protesters across the country took to the streets to block major traffic thoroughfares as living conditions deteriorate amid subsidy cuts and long-delayed efforts by authorities to launch ration cards.
“We came down to protest against the corrupt political class who stole the property of the Lebanese people, who made us sink into hunger. As the president predicted, we are in hell,” a protester in Saida said, in reference to Michel Aoun’s Sept. 21, 2020 comments that the country will go “to hell” without a government.
In Beirut, demonstrators blocked roads in the capital’s downtown, as well as the Cola roundabout and major roads nearby, bringing traffic to a standstill in the capital at the start of the work week. Protesters in Cite Sportive doused the road with motor oil, the state-run National News Agency reported, so as to leave the road impassable.
In Saida, as with Beirut, demonstrators blocked roads, including with garbage dumpsters set alight. Protesters gathered in front of money exchangers in the town, demanding their closure, L’Orient Today’s correspondent reported. The Lebanese lira hit record lows last week.
“Nobody sympathizes with us, while we are struggling to supply ourselves with water, electricity, fuel and food. This represents our most basic rights,” a protester in Saida told our local correspondent.
Protesters blocked the main highways linking Tripoli to nearby regions, including Akkar to the north, with barricades and parked trucks. Meanwhile demonstrators took to the northern city’s Al-Nour Square, an iconic site of past protests, chanting “Lebanese people, take to the streets and defend your rights.”
One protester called for a “revolution against the Lebanese president,” who traveled earlier in the day to Qatar for an official visit on the occasion of the kickoff of the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup football tournament.
The country’s Traffic Management Center reported road blocks elsewhere in the country throughout Monday morning, including the highway leading into Beirut from the north and in the Bekaa Valley outside Zahle.