Women Lack Basics in Lebanon's Crowded Prisons

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
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Women Lack Basics in Lebanon's Crowded Prisons

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP
Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies. AFP

Nour is raising her four-month-old daughter in Lebanon's most overpopulated women's prison, struggling to get formula and nappies for her baby as the country's economy lies in tatters.

"I don't have enough milk to breastfeed, and baby formula isn't readily available," said the 25-year-old, who was detained eight months ago on drug-related accusations.

"Sometimes my daughter doesn't have formula for three days," she added, as green-eyed Amar wriggled on her lap.

Lebanese authorities have long struggled to care for the more than 8,000 people stuck in the country's jails.

But three years of an unprecedented economic crisis mean even basics like medicines are lacking, while cash-strapped families struggle to support their jailed relatives.

Essentials like baby formula have become luxuries for many Lebanese, as the financial collapse -- dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent world history -- has pushed most of the population into poverty.

A months-long judges' strike has exacerbated the situation in prisons, contributing to overcrowding.

Nour said she and her daughter shared a cell at the Baabda women's prison with another 23 people, including two other babies.

She said she sometimes kept Amar in the same nappy overnight while waiting for her parents to bring fresh supplies, but said even they can "barely help with one percent of my baby's needs".

In a hushed voice, she said the shower water gave her and her daughter rashes, but that Amar had never been examined by a prison doctor.

"We all make mistakes, but the punishment we get here is double," Nour said.

Inmates at the prison, located outside the capital Beirut, spoke to AFP in the presence of the prison director and declined to provide their surnames.

Around them, in the facility's breakroom, paint peeled off the walls and water dripped from the ceiling.

Rampant inflation and higher fuel prices have also prevented families from visiting their jailed relatives regularly.

Bushra, another inmate, said she had not seen her teenage daughter for nine months because her family could not afford transportation.

She was detained earlier this year on slander allegations and has been in jail ever since.

"I miss my daughter," said the tattooed 28-year-old, as her eyes welled up with tears.

"So many mothers here cannot even see their children," she added.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in September that Lebanon's economic crisis had "multiplied the suffering of inmates".

His ministry has appealed for more international support for the prison system, citing overcrowding, poor maintenance and shortages of food and medications.

Inmate Tatiana, 32, expressed helplessness at her and her family's situation. She said her mother had slipped into poverty and was living on just $1 a day.

Prisoners "need basics: shampoo, deodorant, clothes," said Tatiana, who has been waiting for a court hearing for nearly three years.

"But our parents cannot afford them for themselves, how can they buy those things for us?" she added, dark circles lining her eyes.

Tatiana is among the nearly 80 percent of Lebanon's prison population languishing in pre-trial detention, according to interior ministry figures. Prison occupancy stands at 323 percent nationwide.

The country's already slow judiciary has been paralyzed since August, when judges started an open-ended strike to demand better wages.

Inmates told AFP they slept on dirty mattresses strewn on the floor in a one-toilet cell shared between more than 20 people.

Baabda women's prison director Nancy Ibrahim said more than 105 detainees were crammed into the jail's five cells, compared to around 80 before the economic collapse.

Non-governmental organizations help with everything from food to "medications, vaccinations for the children" and maintenance, she told AFP from her office at the facility.

Rana Younes, 25, a social worker at Dar Al Amal, said her organization helps women prisoners get the basics including sanitary pads, and also provides legal assistance and even funding for cancer treatments.

She said prisoners sometimes missed court hearings because authorities failed to secure fuel or transportation for them.

Dar Al Amal has spent thousands of dollars on repairs for worn-out pipes and trucked-in water supplies at the Baabda prison, said organization director Hoda Kara.

"Parents can no longer help, the state is absent, so we try to fill the gap," she said.



Morocco Mobile Desalination Units Quench Remote Areas' Thirst

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
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Morocco Mobile Desalination Units Quench Remote Areas' Thirst

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP
Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units © - / AFP

In the small fishing village of Beddouza in western Morocco, locals have turned to the Atlantic to quench their thirst, using mobile desalination stations to combat the kingdom's persistent drought.

Since 2023, Morocco has built some 44 of these desalination stations, also called "monobloc" -- compact, transportable units that have come as a boon against the increasingly tangible effects of climate change.

The potable water is distributed with tanker trucks to remote areas in the country, currently grappling with its worst drought in nearly 40 years.

"We heard about desalinated water in other villages, but we never expected to have it here," said Karim, a 27-year-old fisherman who did not give his last name, gathered among dozens with jerrycans to collect his share of water.

Hassan Kheir, 74, another villager, described the mobile stations as a godsend, as groundwater in the region "has dried up".

Some 45,000 people now have access to drinking water directly from the ocean in Beddouza, about 180 kilometres (112 miles) northwest of Marrakesh, as a result of three monobloc desalination stations.

These units can potentially cover a radius of up to 180 kilometres, according to Yassine Maliari, an official in charge of local water distribution.

With nearly depleted dams and bone-dry water tables, some three million people in rural Morocco urgently need drinking water, according to official figures, and the kingdom has promised to build 219 more desalination stations.

Monobloc stations can produce up to 3,600 cubic metres of drinking water per day and are "the best possible solution" given the ease of distributing them, said Maliari.

For cities with greater needs, like Casablanca, larger desalination plants are also under construction, adding to 12 existing national plants with a total capacity of nearly 180 million cubic metres of drinking water per year.

By 2040, Morocco is poised to face "extremely high" water stress, a dire prediction from the World Resources Institute, a non-profit research organisation.

With coasts on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the North African country has banked on desalination for water security.

In Beddouza, the population is relatively better off than those in remote areas further inland.

About 200 kilometres east, in Al-Massira, the country's second-largest dam has nearly dried up.

The dam has filled up to an alarmingly meagre 0.4 percent, compared to 75 percent in 2017, Abdelghani Ait Bahssou, a desalination plant manager in the coastal city of Safi, told AFP.

The country's overall dam fill rates currently average 28 percent but are feared to shrink by 2050 as drought is expected to persist, according to the agriculture ministry.

Over that same period, official figures project an 11-percent drop in rainfall and a rise in temperatures of 1.3 degrees Celsius.

As the country grapples with the increasingly volatile effects of climate change, King Mohammed VI has pledged that desalination will provide more than 1.7 billion cubic metres per year and cover more than half of the country's drinking water needs by 2030.

The lack of water also threatens Morocco's vital agriculture sector, which employs around a third of the working-age population and accounts for 14 percent of exports.

Cultivated areas across the kingdom are expected to shrink to 2.5 million hectares in 2024 compared with 3.7 million last year, according to official figures.

In 2023, 25 percent of desalinated water was alloted to agriculture, which consumes more than 80 percent of the country's water resources.

Against this backdrop, authorities in Safi were in a "race against time" to build a regular desalination plant which now serves all of its 400,000 residents, said Bahssou.

The plant is set to be expanded to also provide water by 2026 for Marrakesh and its 1.4 million residents, some 150 kilometres east of Safi, Bahssou added.