BEIRUT — The UN's World Food Program and Lebanon's Agriculture Ministry on Wednesday indicated in a joint statement that "nearly two million people in Lebanon, including 1.46 million Lebanese residents and 800,000 Syrian refugees, face food insecurity," the state-run National News Agency reported.
The statement added that the situation is expected to worsen in the coming months.
“According to the analysis data, the situation is expected to deteriorate between January and April 2023, for 2.26 million people ... who will need urgent assistance."
Lebanon has been mired since 2019 in a financial crisis dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent history.
For his part, the WFP Representative and Country Director in Lebanon, Abdallah Alwardat, said: “More people than ever before in Lebanon are dependent on assistance. These findings are extremely worrying and reflect the dire situation that many people in Lebanon are currently facing.”
The joint statement also stated that "the study conducted by 55 national experts in September revealed that the Akkar region witnesses the highest level of acute food insecurity among the Lebanese residents, followed by the regions of Baabda, Baalbek and Tripoli. Among the regions inhabited by Syrian refugees, the Zahle region is the region that witnesses the highest level of acute food insecurity, followed by Baalbek and Akkar regions."
In November, Lebanon secured $5.4 billion in aid over three years from the UN's World Food Program (WFP), caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced and said that the aid money will be "shared equally" by Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees.