Lebanese kids suffer ‘severe food poverty’

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 Hizbollah, the United Nations children’s agency said on Friday.

A ceasefire came into effect on Nov.27, putting an end to more than a year of fighting.

But the war destroyed large swathes of the country, particularly Hizbollah’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 (IMO).

US aid cuts have forced UNICEF to suspend or scale back many programmes in Lebanon.

“We have been forced to suspend or cut back or drastically reduce many of our programmes and that includes nutrition programmes,” UNICEF’s deputy representative in Lebanon, Ettie Higgins, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut.

“In Baalbek-Hermel, more than half (51 per cent) of children under two years of age are experiencing severe food poverty,” UNICEF said in a statement.

“In Bekaa, the rate was 45 per cent, a dramatic increase from 28 per cent in 2023,” it added, defining severe food poverty as the consumption of two items or less out of the eight key food groups.

“The war has taken a shocking toll on children, affecting almost every aspect of their lives,” said UNICEF’s representative in Lebanon, Akhil Iyer.

The agency said older children were also impacted, saying 49 percent of those under 18 in the Bekaa area and 34 percent of those in the Baalbek-Hermel area “either had not eaten or had had only one meal on the day prior to the survey being conducted.”

The survey, conducted in January, found that “72 per cent of caregivers said their children were anxious or nervous during the war, and 62 per cent said they were depressed or sad.”

Nearly 80% of families were in need of urgent support and 31 per cent of households did not have enough drinking water, putting them at risk of disease, the report found.

UNICEF raised alarm about the impact of US aid cuts and a broader decline in global humanitarian funding.

“More than half a million children and their families (in Lebanon) risk losing critical cash support from UN agencies this month.

These cuts would strip the most vulnerable of their last lifeline, leaving them unable to afford even the most basic necessities,” Higgins added.

Agencies