While we are writing this update from the refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon is experiencing a new wave of social tensions, due to the instability of the Dollar value against the Lebanese Lira thus causing a galloping inflation of the necessities’ prices like bread and fuel.
On January 14th, the tensions turned into another "Day of Rage" which started with a national strike announced by the transport unions. The strike undermined the whole country by roadblocks, closures of petrol stations and lines at the bakeries, sometimes controlled by armies’ trucks.
We hear from the people we meet that the bread has been rationed for families in some nearby zones.
Therefore, people take to the streets asking the government to subsidize fuel and goods of first necessity in order to respond to Lebanese Lira’s devaluation which has lost almost 95% of its value in just two years.
Nowadays, filling the fuel tank is not affordable by the minimum monthly wage that corresponds to 20$.
According to the World Food Programme, food prices increased of 557% against the previous autumn.
But how do these numbers result in, since they quantitatively describe one of the most serious economic-financial crisis in the world?
As volunteers from Operazione Colomba, we are witnessing the situation by meeting the fears and the palpable impatience of people.
Whether it is the teacher who pours out the frustration due to the salary decrease of more than 20 times value while sitting near to us in the bus from one stop and the next, or the shopkeeper who doesn’t know how to say to the employees that it is better to stay at home since they will not earn anything from working, or the driver who tells us he can’t afford the fuel’s cost by the earnings of a day’s work.
We become aware of it also by listening to the same speeches about leaving the country and going to Europe, Canada or the United States: everywhere except Lebanon.
This spread despair creates a perfect breeding ground for prejudices, recriminations and accusations against refugees, mainly Syrians, who have been living in a discriminatory condition and in a worsened situation of rights’ deprivation since more than ten years from the beginning of the emergency.
As much as we can, we try to react to such outbursts of anxiety, uncertainty, frustration and fear by listening, paying attention and standing by the people.
And we keep on asking ourselves how we can build a bridge of peace and hope among the communities in this sea of “rage days”.
OPERAZIONE COLOMBA
