Retired soldiers protest in Tripoli

BEIRUT — Retired soldiers and demonstrators held a sit-in on Monday morning in Tripoli’s al-Nour Square in protest of deteriorating living conditions, as Lebanon continues to be mired in an ever-deepening economic crisis.

Here’s what we know:

  • “The mobilizations will continue in all regions to denounce the political class performance,'' protester Haitham Dergham told our correspondent in the north, Michel Hallak. The protester decried the fact that salaries no longer meet basic expenses of a single day due to the soaring inflation of prices.

  • The Lebanese lira has lost more than 90 percent of its value against the dollar over the last three years, plunging more than three quarters of the Lebanese population below the poverty line.

  • Other demonstrators blocked the northern entrance to Tripoli to protest against the economic crisis, according to our correspondent.

  • Being the poorest city on the Mediterranean, Tripoli regularly sees social unrest resulting from its worsening poverty. In 2020, after several days of protests, clashes between protestors and the police left some dead and others injured.