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Lebanese Students Abroad Fear their Future Will be Lost over Dollar Crisis

Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
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Lebanese Students Abroad Fear their Future Will be Lost over Dollar Crisis

Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo
Anti-government protesters break a bank security camera during a protest in Beirut. AP file photo

Lebanese medical student Mohammad Sleiman traveled to Belarus to become the first doctor in his family, but he now fears his country's economic crisis is going to get him expelled.

"I've got a future and I'm working towards it," the 23-year-old said from his bedroom in the capital Minsk, a dream catcher hanging on the wall behind him.

"But if they throw me out of university, my future will be lost. And it'll be the Lebanese state's fault."

As Lebanese banks forbid depositors from transferring their own money abroad, thousands of students who went abroad to pursue studies they could not afford at home are among the hardest hit.

Students told AFP they had moved into cheaper accommodation, taken on jobs or even cut back on meals. Some had been forced to fly home to Lebanon, with no idea how to return to their studies.

Sleiman said he was so stressed about money that he could hardly concentrate in class.

Back home, his family's dollar savings have been trapped in the bank since 2019, and the 23-year-old has no idea how he will pay tuition fees when his father can barely borrow enough to send him rent.

Last month, he says his name appeared on a list with other Lebanese threatened with expulsion if they did not pay up.

Lebanon's parliament passed a law last year to help students like him, but parents say banks systematically turn them away demanding more paperwork.

In the south of Lebanon, Sleiman's father said he had been to several protests by parents demanding help from the Lebanese authorities, but to no avail.

Without access to his savings, 48-year-old Mousa Sleiman has to buy $300 for his son each month on the black market at an exorbitant exchange rate.

But his earnings from his toy and cosmetics store, in Lebanese pounds now worth 85 percent less at street value, cannot even begin to cover it.

"I've been so worried," the father of eight said, with his eldest son's April rent due. "I'm going to have to go and rack up more debt."

One student activist said parents had also sold cars and gold jewelry to help their children.

Many pin blame for Lebanon's worst financial crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war on political mismanagement and corruption.

As the country's foreign reserves plummet, and amid reports of mass capital flight despite currency controls since 2019, they accuse the ruling class of having plundered their savings.

A law passed last year is supposed to allow parents to access $10,000 per student enrolled abroad in 2019 at the much cheaper official exchange rate.

But parents say the banks don't care.

"They take our requests and dump them in drawers because there's no more money left to send. They stole it," said Sleiman's father.

A handful of parents or grandparents have filed lawsuits against their banks and won, the latest last month.

One of them was able last year to transfer funds to his sons in France and Spain so they could graduate.

Sleiman and fellow parents are looking into doing the same.

And the International Union of Lebanese Youth, covering students in 20 countries, has started working with volunteer lawyers towards filing dozens more cases.

But lawyer and activist Nizar Sayegh said these cases were still rare and complicated by coronavirus lockdowns and banks filing appeals.

Many families also shy away from legal action for fear the banks would then close their account, he said.

In Italy, 20-year-old Reine Kassis said she and fellow cash-strapped Lebanese flatmates were having to delay breakfast till lunch time.

"We eat toast and cheese, then study, study, study until supper," said the mechanical engineering student in Ferrara.

She says she has received a little help in Italy.

But her brother, 23, had to return from Ukraine to Lebanon to continue studying online because he could not afford the rent.

Their father Maurice Kassis, a retired officer, said he was heartbroken.

"I only had two children so I could spoil them, and educate them properly," the 54-year-old said in the eastern town of Zahle.

When he retired, he had enough savings stashed away in Lebanese pounds to cover both of them studying abroad.

But today, with the collapse of the Lebanese currency, those pounds would fetch just an eighth of their old value in dollars.

After he has paid off his home loan with his pension each month, he only has the equivalent of $50 left for the whole family.

"How do you educate your children with that?" he asked.

"I'm telling them to find themselves a future abroad."

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Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 Neighborhood, Witness of The Two-Assad Era

Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Damascus’ Mazzeh 86 Neighborhood, Witness of The Two-Assad Era

Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent stand near the wreckage of a car after what the Syrian state television said was a "guided missile attack" on the car in the Mazzeh area of Damascus, Syria October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

In the Mazzeh 86 neighborhood, west of the Syrian capital Damascus, the names of many shops, grocery stores, and public squares still serve as a reminder of the era of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad.

This is evident in landmarks like the “Al-Hafez Restaurant,” one of the prominent features of this area. Squares such as “Al-Areen,” “Officers,” and “Bride of the Mountain” evoke memories of the buildings surrounding them, which once housed influential officials and high-ranking officers in intelligence and security agencies. These individuals instilled fear in Syrians for five decades until their historic escape on the night of the regime’s collapse last month.

In this neighborhood, the effects of Israeli bombing are clearly visible, as it was targeted multiple times. Meanwhile, its narrow streets and alleys were strewn with military uniforms abandoned by leaders who fled before military operations arrived and liberated the area from their grip on December 8 of last year.

Here, stark contradictions come to light during a tour by Asharq Al-Awsat in a district that, until recently, was largely loyal to the former president. Muaz, a 42-year-old resident of the area, recounts how most officers and security personnel shed their military uniforms and discarded them in the streets on the night of Assad’s escape.

He said: “Many of them brought down their weapons and military ranks in the streets and fled to their hometowns along the Syrian coast.”

Administratively part of Damascus, Mazzeh 86 consists of concrete blocks randomly built between the Mazzeh Western Villas area, the Mazzeh Highway, and the well-known Sheikh Saad commercial district. Its ownership originally belonged to the residents of the Mazzeh area in Damascus. The region was once agricultural land and rocky mountain terrain. The peaks extending toward Mount Qasioun were previously seized by the Ministry of Defense, which instructed security and army personnel to build homes there without requiring property ownership documents.

Suleiman, a 30-year-old shop owner, who sells white meat and chicken, hails from the city of Jableh in the coastal province of Latakia. His father moved to this neighborhood in the 1970s to work as an army assistant.

Suleiman says he hears the sound of gunfire every evening, while General Security patrols roam the streets “searching for remnants of the former regime and wanted individuals who refuse to surrender their weapons. We fear reprisals and just want to live in peace.”

He mentioned that prices before December 8 were exorbitant and beyond the purchasing power of Syrians, with the price of a kilogram of chicken exceeding 60,000 Syrian pounds and a carton of eggs reaching 75,000.

“A single egg was sold for 2,500 pounds, which is far beyond the purchasing power of any employee in the public or private sector,” due to low salaries and the deteriorating living conditions across the country,” Suleiman added.

On the sides of the roads, pictures of the fugitive president and his father, Hafez al-Assad, were torn down, while military vehicles were parked, awaiting instructions.

Maram, 46, who previously worked as a civilian employee in the Ministry of Defense, says she is waiting for the resolution of employment statuses for workers in army institutions. She stated: “So far, there are no instructions regarding our situation. The army forces and security personnel have been given the opportunity for settlement, but there is no talk about us.”

The neighborhood, in its current form, dates back to the 1980s when Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of former President Hafez al-Assad, was allowed to construct the “Defense Palace,” which was referred to as “Brigade 86.” Its location is the same area now known as Mazzeh Jabal 86.

The area is divided into two parts: Mazzeh Madrasa (School) and Mazzeh Khazan (Tank). The first takes its name from the first school built and opened in the area, while the second is named after the water tank that supplies the entire Mazzeh region.

Two sources from the Mazzeh Municipality and the Mukhtar’s office estimate the neighborhood’s current population at approximately 200,000, down from over 300,000 before Assad’s fall. Most residents originate from Syria’s coastal regions, followed by those from interior provinces like Homs and Hama. There was also a portion of Kurds who had moved from the Jazira region in northeastern Syria to live there, but most returned to their areas due to the security grip and after the “Crisis Cell” bombing that killed senior security officials in mid-2012.

Along the main street connecting Al-Huda Square to Al-Sahla Pharmacy, torn images of President Hafez al-Assad are visible for the first time in this area in five decades. On balconies and walls, traces of Bashar al-Assad’s posters remain, bearing witness to his 24-year era.