It reached $ 10 billion during Corona ... the profits of the region’s rich are sufficient to pay the bill for repairing Beirut’s destruction

Since the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, 21 of the richest people in the Middle East and North Africa have made profits worth about $ 10 billion, double the amount required to repair the damage caused by the Beirut Port explosion, according to Oxfam.

And the epidemic has strengthened - according to a report published by the organization Thursday - inequality in the region, as 45 million people may descend into poverty.

The organization stated - in a statement about the report - that “the billionaires - the 21 billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa region, all of whom are men - have witnessed an increase in the size of their wealth by about 10 billion dollars since the beginning of the Covid-19 virus epidemic crisis, double the amount required to restore Building the destroyed Lebanese capital. "

The explosion in Beirut port on August 4 left more than 180 dead and 6,500 injured, and about 300,000 people were displaced.

The explosion caused the destruction of several neighborhoods near the port, as almost no building or house was spared, whether from collapsing a roof or a wall or shattering windows and doors, while many buildings became uninhabitable. The damage affected neighborhoods in the suburbs of the capital, and others in areas relatively far from the site of the explosion.

The organization referred to the report of the "PwC" financial audit company, which estimated about $ 5 billion in losses resulting from the destruction of between 30 and 40 buildings, while 3,400 buildings became uninhabitable, and about 40,000 other buildings were damaged.

And Oxfam considered that the Beirut explosion "revealed more than ever the extent of the fragility of the local economy in the country," noting that this disaster "will play a role in increasing inequality in Lebanon," which the United Nations estimates that more than half of its population live below the poverty line. .

In its report, the organization said that since last March, the region's richest people have raised more than twice the regional emergency loans provided by the International Monetary Fund to respond to the epidemic, and almost five times the UN humanitarian appeal on the virus to the region.

Nabil Abdo, Oxfam's policy advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, said, "The epidemic has exposed the deep disparities and massive failures in the region's economic systems, which left millions of people without jobs, health care, or any kind of social security."