Lebanese people face long ‘insulting’ queues to buy bread
‘Thousands of children displaced in DR Congo’ Kinshasa, DR Congo - Thousands of children have been forced to flee their homes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where security forces are battling M23 rebels, the UN’s children’s agency said on Saturday.
Since March, ‘more than 190,000 people, half of them children, have been forced to leave their villages in the Rutshuru and Nyiragongo areas’, UNICEF said in a statement.
“Thousands of children are at risk and have very limited access to basic social services needed for their survival in this crisis,” Grant Leaity, UNICEF representative in the DRC, said on Saturday.
The situation is likely to persist as people are afraid to return home, said Leaity who recently visited the Rutshuru area where he met with those displaced.
In Kalengera the number of displaced people has more than doubled the existing population.
“Displaced families and host families are in urgent need of food, household items, health and water assistance, hygiene and sanitation,” UNICEF said.
“Humanitarian assistance is slow to arrive while needs continue to increase alarmingly,” the agency said. ‘Due to a lack of assistance, some displaced people are forced to return to their home villages located in unstable’ frontline positions, UNICEF warned.
Beirut, Lebanon - In bankrupt Lebanon, Khalil Mansour has to queue for hours every day just to buy bread for his family and some days he can’t afford any.
In a country which once boasted the nickname ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ for its thriving banking sector before financial crisis hit in 2019, the chronic shortage of the staple of the Lebanese diet has been hard to take.
Lebanon defaulted on its national debt in 2020 and its currency has lost around 90 per cent of its black-market value.
The World Bank has branded the financial crisis one of the worst since the 19th century while the United Nations now considers four out five
Lebanese to be living under the poverty line.
Faced with demands from international creditors for painful reforms in return for the release of new aid, the embattled government has been forced to end subsidies on most essential goods - although not so far on wheat.
The price of subsidised bread has gone up, although by less than if there were no subsidy, but bakeries have started rationing the staple.
A bag of flat Arabic pittalike bread now officially sells for 13,000 Lebanese pounds (43 US cents). On the black market it costs more than 30,000.
“Last week I went without bread for three days because I cannot afford to pay 30,000,” said Mansour, 48.
For Mansour and most
Lebanese, buying bread means standing for hours in long queues outside bakeries and sometimes, when their turn comes, the bakeries have run out of bread.
“Today I queued for three hours, yesterday two-and-ahalf. What next?” Mansour said on Friday outside a Beirut bakery. “I have to feed my family. What else can I do?” asked Mansour, who earns the equivalent of US$50 a month working in a pastry shop.
Most bakeries limit the sale of bread to one or two bags per customer, and each bag contains six flatbreads.
Subsidised bread is often bought in large quantities and sold again on the black market by unscrupulous dealers.
“The queues have become worse over the past two weeks,” said bakery owner Mohammed Mehdi. “We are facing huge shortages.”