BEIRUT: Conflict-ridden Tripoli will bring down the rest of the country unless the government ends its neglect of the northern port city, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Tuesday.
“The city of Tripoli has been exposed to things we can no longer tolerate,” Derbas said in remarks carried by the National News Agency.
“If the government could not afford to salvage Tripoli then the city will disrupt the state.”
Derbas acknowledged that the Lebanese government was capable of accruing “some financial assistance” in order to revive the city’s economy through projects such as the construction of a railway from Tripoli’s port to the Syrian border, and the creation of a free economic zone.
A plan was set up in 2008 to expand the Tripoli Port and set up a free economic zone in the city to help it overcome poverty and create more jobs, Derbas said. But the plan never came to fruition, he lamented.
All governments have pledged to assist Tripoli to overcome poverty and increase employment but none of these promises materialized, he added.
He accused the government of discriminating against Tripoli in a “deliberate invasion that serves to change the characteristics and features of the city.”
The poor, some of whom were loyal to the state, have become transformed into “heartless and immoral beings,” he added, in reference to the extremist militants raised in the city.
Last month, two suicide bombers from Tripoli blew themselves up near a cafe in the city, not far from their homes.
“We have all committed sins and not just mistakes against this nation, but it’s time to return to the homeland.”
Tripoli is one of the most impoverished cities in Lebanon. Hundreds of people were killed over the last few years in recurring battles between rival neighborhood divided over the Syrian conflict.
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