A gunman in Beirut, Lebanon, took some bank employees as hostages and demanded that his frozen bank account, like most Lebanese checking accounts, be unlocked since November 2019 following the failure of the Lebanese banking system. According to Beirut media, the man took hostages inside a bank in central Hamra Street. No further details are known.
Since November 2019, the Lebanese banking cartel, in agreement with the Central Bank, has frozen almost all current accounts and deposits of investments and savings in heavy currency (dollar, euro) of Lebanese savers. Meanwhile, the local lira has devalued more than 95% against the US dollar.
It is not the first time that such an episode has occurred in the shadow of Lebanon’s worst economic crisis, where according to the UN, 80% of the resident population has been reduced to poverty by the ruling elite responsible for the financial default. revealed in the autumn of 2019 and made official by the government in March 2020.