A child peeks from behind a corner of a building in Beirut's Karantina district. (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
BEIRUT — Half of Lebanese children “are now in need of humanitarian aid,” the Save the Children humanitarian group cautioned, sounding the alarm over worsening living conditions in the country and the repercussions of the war in Ukraine on global food chains.
Here’s what we know:
• In a statement Thursday, Save the Children said that about 700,000 children needed aid, “with thousands at risk of malnutrition as the war in Ukraine threatens to further exacerbate a national food crisis.”
• The US-headquartered organization cited newly released UN figures that said more than 2 million Lebanese people, or 57 percent of the population, are “now living in vulnerable situations” while three in every four households do not have “enough money to buy food.”
• Save the Children added that another 700,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon already face dire conditions, with nearly all Syrian refugee households not having enough money to purchase food.
• “The conflict in Ukraine has deepened a food crisis in Lebanon that was triggered in autumn 2019 as the country sank into one of the world’s worst financial crises in modern history,” Save the Children’s press release said.
• “Children will continue to bear the brunt of Lebanon’s worsening poverty crisis with more than 200,000 children already suffering from malnutrition and 7% of all children stunted, an indicator of chronic malnutrition,” it added.
• “The country faces an irreversible decline in living conditions for children and families that will take generations to recover from if we don’t act now. This is a children’s crisis, with children’s lives and futures at stake,” Save the Children’s country director in Lebanon, Jennifer Moorehead, warned.