Lebanon's humanitarian crisis has deepened to the point where one in five children regularly goes to bed hungry, according to UNICEF. Four in five households cannot afford basic necessities, the UN Children's Fund reported Wednesday.
The deprivation extends beyond food. Children are missing school because families cannot pay tuition. Child labor is rising as parents turn to work as a survival strategy. UNICEF cited one father of four who said he could not afford to buy clothes for his children or enroll them in school.
The crisis compounds years of economic collapse with the effects of ongoing conflict. Lebanon's currency has lost most of its value since 2019. Banks have restricted access to deposits. The country faces a severe shortage of foreign currency. These factors have made imported goods, including food and medicine, prohibitively expensive for most households.
No timeline for recovery is given in the UNICEF statement. The organization did not specify which conflict it referenced or provide a recent date for the data underpinning these figures. The statement suggests the trend is worsening, with children "increasingly" going without food and being "pushed into work," but no comparison to previous periods is provided.