Qatar gives cash-strapped Lebanese army $60 mn: ministry

Doha, Qatar – AFP

Energy-rich Qatar has given Lebanon’s cash-strapped armed forces $60 million, the foreign ministry in Doha announced Thursday.

Lebanon is grappling with an unprecedented financial crisis, branded by the World Bank as one of the planet’s worst since the 1850s.

The small Mediterranean country defaulted on its debt in 2020, the local currency has lost around 90 percent of its value on the black market, and the UN now considers four in five Lebanese to be poor.

The economic crisis has eaten away at the value of soldiers’ salaries and slashed the military’s budget for maintenance and equipment. At one point in 2020, Lebanon’s army said it had scrapped meat from the meals offered to on-duty soldiers due to rising food prices.

And in June last year it said it would offer tourists helicopter rides in a bid to boost its coffers.

On Thursday, a Lebanese military source told AFP that financial assistance from Qatar would help pay the salaries of Lebanese soldiers.

The Qatari announcement came as the Gulf state’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani was visiting Lebanon.

The aid, Qatar said, reflects Doha’s support for the “brotherly Lebanese people and its firm belief in the importance and necessity of joint Arab action”.