Washington announces immediate $ 15 million worth of food and medicine to Lebanon

The United States announced on Friday that it was immediately sending $ 15 million in food and medicine to Lebanon, three days after the violent explosions that devastated Beirut. The aid, which will be delivered locally by the US military, is equivalent to up to three months of food for 50,000 people and up to three months of medicine for 60,000 people, the international aid agency said in a statement. from the United States, USAid. " We are on the side of the Lebanese (...) in this difficult period ", she added. " The United States has long supported the Lebanese aspiration for economic prosperity and responsible governance, free from corruption and foreign pressures.". The American army had already announced Thursday that it had handed over to its Lebanese counterpart a first shipment of water, food and medicine in Lebanon. Others are to follow on board C-17 military planes chartered from a base in Qatar.

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Caused Tuesday by the explosion of tons of ammonium nitrate at the port of Beirut, the huge blasts left at least 149 dead and thousands of injured. The destruction of the port of the Lebanese capital raises fears of a shortage of bread in the country, whose economy was already in great difficulty before the disaster. USAid underlined in its press release that it has already allocated $ 41.6 million to Lebanon to help it cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. The United States, however, had expressed doubts about aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Lebanon, where Washington would like to see the influence of the Shiite movement Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, diminish.