Taxi drivers block the road facing the Interior Ministry in Sanayeh, Beirut, Feb. 15, 2023. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Protestors, enraged by the rapid depreciation of the local currency, constructed new roadblocks across Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon, L'Orient Today's correspondent in the South reported.
Demonstrations were reported in Beirut, Saida and Mazraat Yachoua.
A number of taxi drivers blocked the road near the Interior Ministry in the Sanayeh area of Beirut to protest Lebanon's deepening crisis. Some motorcyclists, who insisted on passing through the barricades, beat protestors, according to the National News Agency (NNA).
The protesters caused severe traffic jams in an effort to demand the stabilization of surging fuel prices and improved livelihood.
Citizens trapped in their cars called on officials to intervene to reopen the roads, as "the drivers' movement to obtain their rights should not be at the expense of the citizen," the NNA reported.
In Saida, South Lebanon, protestors blocked the road at Elia Square, also in protest of the rapid deterioration of the local currency and thus their livelihoods.
Meanwhile in the North, protesters blocked the Antelias-Bikfaya highway at Mazraat Yachoua point with burning tires and waste containers, according to the NNA.
Earlier on Wednesday, angry demonstrators closed several roads across the country, namely the Cola roundabout in Beirut and several roads in Akkar, North Lebanon
The Lebanese lira fell to a record low of LL75,000 on the dollar Wednesday. The local currency has lost more than 98 percent of its value in the last three years of severe economic crisis.
Lebanon is without a president or a fully empowered government, but officials are still stalling on the necessary reforms to unlock an International Monetary Fund aid package and stem the country's financial collapse.
Reporting contributed by Muntasser Abdallah.