Lebanon’s disappearing Ramadan Iftar: ‘We eat and drink from rubbish’

Lebanon's disappearing Ramadan Iftar: 'We eat and drink from garbage'

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Four streets away, Ahmad Chibly is penniless. Behind him a Ferris wheel, its once gaudy paint now faded, stands tall against Beirut’s Mediterranean coastline.

For Khadija and Ahmad, fasting is a simple feat. Putting together an Iftar — the sunset meal that breaks the fast — is not.

“People don’t help each other anymore,” said 22-year-old Ahmad, sitting on a ledge near a tiny fenced park in the Ras Beirut neighborhood.

“In the end, we’ve been reduced to this,” he adds as he gestures to an 11-year-old child rummaging through garbage, his tiny legs sticking out of the dumpster.

Normally, Khadija and Ahmad’s families would look forward to a four-course home-cooked Iftar, while outside, the streets would be festooned with colored lights to celebrate the holy month.

But for many in Lebanon, this year’s Ramadan has a different flavor: One made bitter by an economic depression which has spiraled since late 2019, turning a country that once had the highest GDP per capita in the non-oil…

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