Ana Maria Guzelian and Noemí Jabois
Beirut (EFE) to immolate himself in order to gain access to his own money.
Their story is similar to that of many Lebanese who, since the outbreak of a severe economic crisis in the country at the end of 2019, have only been able to withdraw limited amounts of cash in dollars or its equivalent in Lebanese pounds at an exchange rate more than five times lower. to that of the black market.
For those who had saved in the local currency, their money is virtually useless today, since in just three years the Lebanese pound has gone from being worth 1,507 units to a dollar to exceeding 80,000 in the parallel market, triggering the number of desperate acts for part of the savers.
All legal avenues exhausted
Al Hajjar assured EFE that, in his case, they first exhausted “all” legal avenues, but the bank still did not give them access to their life savings while his mother’s health continued to deteriorate, so his father decided to take a drastic measure.
“He went to the bank by force to get his money, he was going to set himself on fire just to take his own money,” the young man said between sobs.
All their savings were in the bank, including the profits obtained after selling two plots and three shops: about 80,000 dollars and, on the other hand, 750 million Lebanese pounds that they had converted to the local currency convinced by the bank just two months before the outbreak of the crisis.
With no access to more than a crumb of that money each month, when their mother got sick they had to borrow money to pay for the constant visits to hospitals, where thousands of dollars were left behind before word was received that the woman was suffering from a cancer.
of lost lives
“My father would go (to the bank) and ask for what is his right, but they would not give it to him. Eventually, we had debts with people and how were we going to pay them off?” explained Al Hajjar, whose mother also needed medicine and medical treatment.
The young man’s father managed to get the branch to give him $25,000 only when he chose to use “force”, a measure that cost him several days in prison and caused his grandfather a heart attack, who “died instantly” after learning that the son had been arrested.
“This year we lost two martyrs because of the banks, the bank killed two of ours. My mother and grandfather died,” Al Hajjar lamented.
his mother as a weapon
While in the last three years several affected by the “corralito” have chosen to go to their banks with firearms or gasoline cans, Hussain Hassan Saado’s light bulb went on when an old woman successfully raided a nearby branch to his office in Beirut.
He knew that to rescue his own money he would have to use violence and he was not interested in ending up in handcuffs, but he thought that his mother, 90 years old and with many medicines to pay for, did have a chance of accessing hers without having to resort to guns. or knives.
According to what he told EFE, he went to his mother’s bank and explained that the woman is very old and lives on the seventh floor, so he could only bring her to withdraw a small amount in Lebanese pounds when public light did one of its few apparitions and could use the elevator.
Within the framework of the crisis, the state electricity supply arrives a couple of hours a day in the best of cases and at totally random times.
The next day, Saado took her mother to the branch with the help of several people, and the security guards let them in thanks to the manager, who still thought the old woman was trying to withdraw some cash.
“When we told him we wanted our money, he opened the account, saw that it was in dollars, and was shocked. This is where the operation began (…) He kept repeating that he could not give it to us and I told him that we would not leave there, “said the man, laughing when he recalled the situation.
Agreement with the bank
Saado was aware that things would take a long time, so he had brought medicine and food for his mother with him.
During the negotiations, the regional director of the entity, the security forces, intelligence and the press were arriving, while they for their part called the Depositors Association.
Given the increasing pressure and the fatigue of the old woman, the bank ended up agreeing to deliver 10,800 of the 21,000 dollars that the account contained, and they were allowed to leave once the media left the area, 9 hours after the start of the “operation ”.
“Since we did not attack anyone and there was no violence, there were no weapons, they spoke to the prosecutor and there were no charges. We left with all due respect,” Saado said.
