Lebanese school teacher Sara Wissam and her husband were comfortably off before a run on the local currency decimated the value of their salaries and dragged them towards poverty.
The plight of the Beirut couple is common across Lebanon's middle class, which has been forced to make once unthinkable choices by the worsening economic crisis: cutting back on food, cancelling trips or applying to emigrate for good.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.
The World Bank ranks the crisis as among the most severe globally since the mid-19th century, devastating a country once seen as a wealthy and liberal outpost in the Middle East before civil war broke out from 1975 to 1990. Yola al-Musan, who manages a supermarket in Beirut, uses electricity from a shared neighbourhood generator to keep the lights on at home.
Before the crisis, Wissam and her husband's combined salary was 3 million Lebanese pounds a month, which at the exchange rate at the time of 1,500 to the dollar was around $2,000. Politicians, some former militia leaders and others from families who wielded influence for generations over the nation's Christian and Muslim communities, acknowledge corruption exists but deny they are responsible and say they are doing their best to rescue the economy.
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