Save the Children (Save the Children) yesterday warned that nearly a million people in Beirut do not have enough money to secure food, more than half of them are children who are threatened by hunger due to the prolonged economic crisis in Lebanon.
"In Greater Beirut, 910,000 people, including 564,000 children, do not have the money to buy their basic needs," the organization said in a report.
"We will start watching children die of hunger before the end of this year," said Jad Saqr, the agency's acting director in Beirut.
"The crisis hits everyone, Lebanese families, as well as Palestinian and Syrian refugees," he added.
The "collapsed" Lebanese economy, according to the report, prompted "more than half a million children in Beirut to struggle for life or to starve." He said that their families are unable to provide for their basic needs of food, electricity, fuel, health supplies and water.
Lebanon hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees, about a million of whom are registered with the United Nations. The government also estimates that there are more than 174,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, while unofficial estimates indicate that they number close to 500,000.