The latest addition to Lebanon’s multi-layered crisis might be a severe shortage of bread.
Bechara Asmar, President of the General Labor Union, warned on Wednesday that the lack of fuel could lead to a bread crisis very soon.
“… We were also informed today that bakeries are suffering from a severe shortage of diesel fuel, which, if available, would be at black market prices,” he said in a statement addressing the fuel problem.
This shortage “may lead to a loaf crisis within a few days that might not exceed two days, making it difficult to obtain a loaf of bread, and we will see queues of humiliation in front of bakeries, not to mention the humiliation of obtaining medicine and basic foodstuffs,” he warned.
Asmar also revealed that some private and governmental hospitals have run out of diesel fuel as well.
The warning echoes that of Firass Abiad, head of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, who had sent a letter on Monday to the Energy Ministry asking for the hospital to be excluded from electricity rationing.
Asmar repeated his call for officials to quickly form a rescue government to respond to the potential consequences of what he called “the accumulation of crises in all sectors.”
The current situation in Lebanon could lead to “security chaos” and “the inevitable explosion and collapse that no one will survive and which all evidence and data on the ground indicates is imminent,” the expert finally warned.
