Did you know that pandemics aggravated the death toll of the Great Famine?

Did you know the Great Famine of 1915-1918, which is largely credited to have shaped up the current frontiers of Lebanon, was accompanied by numerous pandemics? 

It does not exactly come as a surprise, as a weakened body struggles to defend itself against viruses and bacterias. 

The famine was due to an accumulation of factors, among them the double blockade imposed by Allies and Ottomans,  the 1915 infestation of locusts which destroyed all cultures, and pandemics!

Dysentery, typhus, tuberculosis, cholera aggravated the death toll: at least one third of Mount Lebanon’s population (around 200,000 people) died during that period. In proportion, it’s way more than the number of people who died during the Civil War.

It’s this dark moment in history that led Patriarch Al-Howayek to negotiate that the Bekaa Valley, the main food producing area of the region, be appended to Mount Lebanon and the coast in the French project of Greater Lebanon in 1920. Including it into Lebanon was a way  to make sure there was enough food for the population of the country. 

It’s good to keep that in mind at a time where we Lebanese are asking ourselves how the hell we’re gonna locally replace some 80 % of the food we eat that we imported till now.