Lebanese minister says country needs $250m a month for displaced
A Lebanese minister has said the country will need $250 million a month to help the million-plus people displaced by the war, according to the Arab News via Reuters. The comments, which came on October 22nd, come before a conference on October 24th in Paris to gain support for Lebanon.
Nasser Yassin, the minister charged with responding to the crisis and who will attend that conference, told Reuters that the government response only covered 20% of the needs of some 1.3 million people uprooted by Israel’s invasion, even with the backing of local initiatives and international aid.
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The number of displaced is likely to grow as airstrikes continue, Yassin said. “We need $250 million a month” to cover basic food, water, sanitation and education services for the displaced.” Schools, an old slaughterhouse, a fresh food market and an empty complex have all been turned into shelters in recent days. “We’re transforming anything, any public building,” Yassin said. “There is a lot to be done.”
Environment minister Yassin now spends a lot of his time at a government headquarters with a crisis team, alongside other Lebanese ministries, the United Nations Development Programme and the Lebanese Red Cross.
The plan is for relief operations on a timeline of four to six months, but Yassin hopes the war wont last that long. “We need to have a ceasefire today, and we need everybody in the international community, for once…to be brave enough to say what’s happening,” he told Reuters, adding that he would repeat that message in Paris.
“There is a member state of the UN waging war against a small nation in the most aggressive manner we’ve ever seen in the history of Lebanon. This should be the message,” he stated.
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Yassin estimated the damage to his country to be in the billions of dollars. “Full villages on the border were blown up in the last few days, but also public institutions…water establishments, pumping stations, hospitals, you name it. All of these need to be rebuilt.”
Authorities in Leanon have yet to put a firm estimate on the scale of the destruction and how much it will cost to rebuild. Former economy minister Nasser Saidi told Reuters last week that Israel’s war has caused damage that will cost $25 billion to repair.
Blerta Aliko, UNDP’s regional representative, said on October 2nnd that the damage would be far-reaching and include “a drastic capital loss” — including to Lebanon’s long-term ability to feed itself.
“I’m not talking from the perspective of what is required in an immediate term, in the next month — I’m talking about the impact that has on the harvesting season… being impacted in the south, being impacted in the east, which are very, very important for the country,” she said.
Reuters
