More than one in two children under the age of two are suffering “severe food poverty” in east Lebanon after the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the United Nations children’s agency said on Friday.
A ceasefire came into effect on November 27, putting an end to more than a year of fighting, including two months of full-blown war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group.
But the war destroyed large swathes of the country, particularly Hezbollah’s bastions in the south and in the Bekaa Valley in the east, and more than 100,000 people are still displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration.
“In Baalbek-Hermel, more than half (51 percent) of children under two years of age are experiencing severe food poverty,” UNICEF said in a statement.
Barrons/ AFP