Poverty and dignity in a Lebanon in free fall

1The Bab el Tebeneh neighborhood of Tripoli is one of the most deprived neighborhoods in Lebanon where 78% of the residents live below the poverty line.

Natalia Sancha

2A refrigerator that doubles as a closet due to lack of amps, two portraits and two sofas are all the furniture available to Khadije S., in his sixties, in the impoverished Bab el Tebeneh neighborhood of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

3Despite the high number of infections and the saturation of hospitals, the Lebanese ignore the restrictions imposed by the Government without social compensation for people who are paid by the day.

In the image, flea market in the center of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

4Riad R., 45, no longer reaches the end of the month with the 70 euros a month that he earns from street vendors of sandwiches in the city of Tripoli, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Natalia Sancha

5Views over the city of Tripoli, the second most populated and impoverished in the country.

Natalia Sancha

6The inability to cope with the burden of rent as Lebanon plunges into a dizzying economic crisis, has led the most vulnerable to inhabit crumbling houses in the city of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

7Thousands of Tripoli's residents live in extreme poverty in unsanitary homes without windows, running water or electricity, pushing them to the brink of famine.

Natalia Sancha

8Ghassan el Bakri, 33, poses with one of the miniatures he has built in his workshop in the port of the Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

9The shelves of vegetable markets are being emptied in Tripoli.

A country that imports 80% of what it consumes and where the shortage of foreign reserves has caused a 150% hyperinflation in the prices of basic products.

Natalia Sancha

10Volunteers from the Lebanese NGO City Guardians distribute hot food to 200 underprivileged families in Tripoli at the time of iftar, the breaking of the Muslim fast.

Natalia Sancha

11The university student Mira Sukkari poses with her brother at the Wood nightclub in the Christian quarter Al Mina, in the city of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

12Jamil Ali, 21, a cardboard worker, poses in a deprived neighborhood of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

13A woman returns home with her purchases in the impoverished Bab el Tebeneh neighborhood of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

14Activist Eman Ibrahim poses at the Cafe Warshe 13 in the Al Mina Christian neighborhood of Tripoli.

Natalia Sancha

15Posters of martyrs who fell during the multiple battles in the Lebanese city of Tripoli share the walls with the torn posters of local political leaders.

Natalia Sancha

16The economic crisis and the pandemic empty the small restaurants in the port of Tripoli in Ramadan, a month of Muslim fasting, other crowded years at the time of iftar, the breaking of the fast. Natalia Sancha