As a specialized technician with over a decade in the army, he had been making the equivalent of $1,300 month. But then Lebanon’s economic crisis hit in 2019. Elias tried to leave his military life behind through official channels. But after he received no official response from military authorities, he stopped showing up for service. “I’m starting from zero,” he told me over a beer in Badaro, a neighborhood in east Beirut.

Source: The North Africa Journal July 07, 2023 12:31 UTC