OVER 30% CHILDREN IN LEBANON GO TO BED HUNGRY: UN

Fri 02 July 2021:

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday that more than 30 percent of children in Lebanon went to bed hungry and skipped meals in the past month.

The report Lebanon: Children’s future on the line, released this week, examined the impact of Lebanon’s economic crisis on children.

The report also underlined that 77% of families in Lebanon said they do not have sufficient month to buy enough food for their children, and that when it comes to Syrian families in Lebanon the figure jumps to 99%, according to the report.

Touching on Lebanon’s lack of a comprehensive social protection system, it stated that “60% had to buy food on credit or borrow money.”

The survey also found that 15 percent of the Lebanese families stopped their children’s education, while 80 percent of caregivers said their children had difficulties concentrating on their studies at home, which might mean hunger or mental distress.

Additionally, 40% of the children are from families where no family members are working for pay, while 30% of them are not getting the basic health care they need, the report added.

The UNICEF report also called on Lebanese authorities to expand social protection measures by providing for emergency needs and basic healthcare services to all children in the country.

Lebanon’s economic and financial collapse, along with the absence of social support, has plunged its families and children into a dire situation that affects every aspect of their lives.

Lebanon is stuck in the formation of a new government amid differences between Prime Minister-designate Hariri and President Michel Aoun.

Since October 2019, Lebanon has faced a severe economic crisis and a deterioration in living conditions, the worst for the Lebanese people since the five-year civil war that ended in 1990.

A massive blast last August at the Port of Beirut, which left at least 200 Lebanese dead and thousands injured, made the already fragile situation even worse.

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