Half of the population, affected first by Covid-19, then by the economic-financial crisis resulting from the Beirut port explosion, today does not have enough food
“97 percent of the Syrian families we assist struggle to get food.” Riccardo Mioli, head of mission for INTERSOS, gets straight to the point talking about Lebanon, where the most vulnerable cannot afford to access the food needed without incurring debt or decreasing the number of daily meals.The 97 percent means that almost all the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, around 1.5 million today, are experiencing a food crisis that only humanitarian aid has so far limited.
Wheat, corn, and cereals, in general, are now more than ever a precious commodity that is in danger of becoming a luxury, because of the war in Ukraine: more than 100 days after the beginning of the conflict, the threat of a global food crisis is to be considered concrete. Ukraine is no longer able to export grain dozens of countries depend on. Lebanon is one of these. 80 % of food is imported, and the main suppliers are precisely those countries involved in a war to which there is no end in sight, Ukraine and Russia.
Out of a population of 6 million, 3.2 now live on the poverty line. Half of the people do not have enough food, because in two years they have been affected first by the Covid-19 pandemic and then the financial and economic crisis as a consequence, among other factors, of the explosion of the strategic port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. The survival of millions of people depends on those grain-filled silos stuck in major Ukrainian ports, such as those in Odesa and Mykolaiv.
The price of food and essential goods is rising
So, if Lebanon until a few months ago was already barely able to endure hyperinflation, the collapse of the banking system, and a terrible socio-economic crisis, today it’s the indirect target of a conflict, seemingly distant in geographical terms, but that is rapidly exacerbating the already existing crisis. In recent weeks, the country has suffered a rise in the price of grains and vegetables to date never seen: “The relative cost of the basket of essential food items has already increased by more than 20 % since the beginning of the conflict (seed oil, sugar, and bread above all),” Mioli says. Moreover, while the prices of products go up, the wages of much of the population decrease or remain unchanged.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, prices of essential goods have increased by more than ten times. “And all of this naturally has an even more devastating impact on Syrian refugees who lack livelihoods,” adds the head of mission who, together with other INTERSOS workers, noted “a dramatic increase even of Lebanese in need of the psychological, legal and social assistance services that we offer in the different areas of the country, with a strong impact especially on minors. Because of the economic crisis,” Mioli stressed, “the exploitation of minors labour is increasing.“ There are about 200 cases of exploited children encountered by INTERSOS only in the first four months of 2022.
This food crisis is part of the already dramatic scenario. “The patch crisis,” as Riccardo Mioli calls it, “is the result of years and years of policies that have only tried to put a patch on increasingly large and torn wounds: the Syrian refugee crisis, the currency crisis, the Beirut port explosion, the hyperinflation, the pandemic, the crisis of services such as the lack of electricity and water. And now there is the grain crisis, the cost of food.”
INTERSOS, which has been working in Lebanon since 2006, is a constant witness to a country that is sinking. “We try to support economically both Syrian refugees and Lebanese who have difficulty paying their house rent. Rent costs have increased exponentially (in some cases by more than 200 %) and this is added up to the increase in utility costs (electricity, water, gas) that are now unaffordable for the most vulnerable families and for all those who have fixed wages in local currency and not updated to continuing inflation.” The houses and stores in popular neighborhoods scattered across the country are the perfect pictures of this crisis. They show the emptiness and uncertainty affecting an entire people. “I wonder how much longer these patches will be able to keep Lebanon standing. Yet, the resilience of the Lebanese people and the Syrian refugees is still alive, and it is the only driving force that still exists”.