(Beirut) An armed man holds Beirut bank employees hostage on Thursday to demand his savings of more than 200,000 dollars, the latest violent incident in a country ravaged by the economic crisis, security sources have indicated to the AFP.
Posted at 7:39
The Federal Bank bank branch near the busy Hamra Street was surrounded by an imposing security cordon at the beginning of the afternoon, noted an AFP journalist.
The angry user “entered with a shotgun and flammable materials and threatened the employees to give him his savings”, explained one of these sources.
Another source said that the 40-year-old had “spread gasoline, closed the door of the bank and held the employees hostage”.
According to the Lebanese news agency NNA, the man “threatened to set himself on fire and kill everyone by pointing his pistol at the head of the agency director”.
According to NNA, he said he stormed into the bank because his father “was admitted to hospital some time ago for an operation and couldn’t pay for it”.
His brother Atef al-Sheikh Hussein was at the scene.
“My brother has $210,000 in the bank and only wants $5,000 to pay the hospital bills,” he told reporters, adding that he would turn himself in as soon as he got his money.
According to him, his brother seized a weapon “from the bank and had not brought it with him”. “It doesn’t matter if he goes to prison, the important thing is that we relieve our (financial) distress,” he added.
A video posted online shows two negotiators demanding that the assailant – whom they call Bassam – release two clients.
Brandishing his weapon and a cigarette, he then released a hostage, according to an AFP correspondent on the spot, while dozens of passers-by and relatives of the hostages gathered at the bank.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been going through one of the worst socio-economic crises in the history of the world since 1850, according to the World Bank.
The national currency has lost more than 90% of its value and about 80% of the population has been plunged into poverty, in particular due to the draconian banking restrictions which prevent them from having free access to their money.
Regularly, violent incidents break out between bank employees and exasperated savers.