Attachments
Operational context
At the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Lebanese Government imposed various confinement measures which proved to be successful in preventing the spread of the virus. Nevertheless, as of August 2020 the number of positive COVID-19 cases in Lebanon started to increase exponentially, pushing the country into the stage of community transmission and exerting additional strain on the health system with hospitals nearly reaching saturation by the final quarter of 2020.
The country’s deep economic and financial crisis has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 situation and by the devastating explosions in the Beirut port in August 2020, leading to a fast deterioration of the socio-economic situation of both Lebanese and refugees. The study Compounding Misfortunes: Changes in Poverty Since the Onset of COVID-19 by UNHCR, the World Bank group and the Joint Data Centre of Forced Displacement finds that Lebanon has been particularly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as it arrived when the country was already reeling from political and economic collapse, soaring inflation and a declining GDP. One-third of Lebanese (33 p.p., or 1.7 million people) are expected to have fallen into poverty, and as many as 840,000 Syrian refugees (56 p.p.) since many more Syrians were living just above the international poverty line when COVID-19 hit, making them much more vulnerable.
The 2020 Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees (VaSyR) conducted by UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP also finds soaring levels of poverty among the Syrian refugees. Around 89% of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon are now living below the extreme poverty line, an increase from 55% in mid-2019. The 2020 VaSyR also finds that only 4% of the Syrian families are food secure, leading to growing needs for food assistance. With hyperinflation driving the cost of food and non-food items, refugees’ ability to survive is further reducing and the situation is creating hunger, increased debt, and mental and physical health problems, as well as increasing risks of evictions, exploitation, child labour, gender-based violence and desperate acts like onward movements by sea to Cyprus.
The rising competition over resources for survival is fuelling tensions between Lebanese and Syrian individuals and communities, increasing the propensity to violence and generally eroding the hospitality of host communities.
With the national health system on the brink of collapse and hospitals reaching full capacity across the country, UNHCR has continued working within the National COVID-19 Response, and in close collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health, to expand hospitals’ treatment capacity to ensure that all COVID-19 infected persons can obtain treatment in a timely manner without creating competition for care between individuals, regardless of nationality or other background. In doing so, UNHCR also aims to contribute to maintaining social stability and mitigate the risk of intercommunal tensions arising due to lack of availability of needed medical care.