Heat of Lebanon clashes rises

COVID-19 lockdown adds to woes of people mired in hardship

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Hundreds of protesters in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli set fire Tuesday to two banks and hurled stones at soldiers.

The armed forces responded with tear gas and batons in renewed clashes triggered by an economic crisis spiraling out of control amid a weekslong virus lockdown.

The clashes got underway in the afternoon hours after a tense funeral was held for a 27-year-old man killed during riots overnight in the country’s second-largest city.

Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city, is in one of the most neglected and poorest regions in Lebanon, and there were concerns that the confrontations would escalate to wider chaos.

The violence was a reflection of the rising poverty and despair gripping the country.

The national currency appeared to be in a free fall over the last few days, selling as low as 4,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar.

“What you’re seeing is a result of accumulated problems. We had a revolution, people were suffering, then came corona and people were locked in their homes for a monthand-a-half without the state securing food and drink or anything else for them,” said protester Abdelaziz Sarkousi, 47. “Now we have reached a state where unfortunately you cannot control people anymore. People are hungry!”

Smaller protests also erupted elsewhere in Lebanon, including in Beirut’s city center, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered Tuesday evening.

Last week, scattered anti-government protests resumed as authorities began easing a weekslong lockdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in Lebanon, which has reported 710 cases and 24 deaths so far.

The tiny Mediterranean country of about 5 million people is one the most indebted in the world. Nationwide protests broke out in October against the government because of widespread corruption and mismanagement of resources.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government came to office in January after his predecessor, Saad Hariri, stepped down. He was quickly engulfed in a nationwide health crisis over the novel cornavirus, a crisis that deepened the country’s economic recession.