The United Nations announced Saturday that it will suspend a plan to begin making aid payments to Syrian refugees in crisis-wracked Lebanon in dollars, after pushback from Lebanese officials.
Lebanon has been in the throes of a severe financial crisis since 2019, with triple-digit inflation and the domestic currency having lost more than 98% of its market value. An estimated three-quarters of the population is now living in poverty, with refugees having been hit particularly hard. Some 90% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are below the extreme poverty line, according to a U.N. assessment.
