In central Beirut stands an eight-metre tall painted steel sculpture of a tree, built by the artist Yazan Halwani in remembrance of the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon, which lasted from 1915 to 1918. Unveiled in 2018, the Memory Tree's branches are covered in Arabic calligraphy, quoting poets and writers who lived through the First World War calamity, including Kahlil Gibran and Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad.
Lebanon is today suffering multiple tragedies, from Beirut’s port explosion of August 2020 – one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in human history – to a crippling financial crisis that has depleted savings and significantly devalued the Lebanese pound.
As difficult as it is to imagine, the century-old famine was even more severe than these current troubles - having wiped out a sizeable portion of the population and forced countless to migrate. Since its centenary a few years ago, there has been a resurgence in interest relating to the famine, reinforced perhaps by the country’s continuing issues. The latest to examine the subject is Tylor Brand’s Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War.
The reasons behind the deadly famine were complex, having taken place under an unpopular Ottoman governor, Jamal Pasha, when the region faced a maritime blockade by Allied powers to prevent the supply of food. Furthermore, there was an invasion of locusts. Brand, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, is less interested in the causes and politics behind the famine, and more in “how people experienced the crises”.
Brand previously resided in Beirut for six years, where he first began research into the famine at the American University of Beirut. While digging around historic accounts from that period, a more modern tragedy began to unfold as Syrian refugees poured in.
Navigating the streets of modern-day Beirut, Brand recognised his own “compassion fatigue” towards Syrian refugees in the writing of authors describing the famine a century ago: “I saw their avoidance strategies in my own rerouted journeys through the city, which over time began to favour streets where I would be less likely to encounter certain persistent child beggars and shoeshine boys.”
Later, while talking about the portrayal of death during the famine, he narrates the experience of American professor Edward Nickoley. While resting at home one day in 1917, Nickoley heard the “agonised moans” of a starving boy outside, which leaves him “emotionally conflicted” as he is held back from helping by an intangible fear.
He finally falls asleep without going out to help: “He woke the next morning to the sight of a cart loading a corpse where the boy had been. Nickoley did not act, and as a consequence, the collectors of the dead were forced to.”
The number who perished from the famine is not known for certain. According to one source, 200,000 died in Lebanon, though other estimates vary. Brand cautions against writers reducing suffering to a statistic, which he says inadvertently converts each individual life to a tiny fraction of a percentage: “While death understandably remains the morbid standard by which famines are measured, to overemphasise death skews our understanding of famine to the extreme, worst cases at their final, irreparable end.”
There is a chapter dedicated to survival tactics during the famine, such as adding wild herbs and roots to supplement normal diet, while those who were destitute “combed the trash heaps for potato and citrus peels, cactus pads, scraps of bone and gristle, melon rinds, rotten food and other nominally edible, if mostly indigestible, material.” Migration was another route towards survival, from rural to urban zones, swelling the populations of large towns and cities like Beirut, Tripoli and Zahle, “despite the obvious suffering in the streets”.
Famine Worlds is a meticulously researched account that will appeal to those with a scholarly interest in the historical Levant. However, its academic tone and forensic examination of the famine era is geared to a specific readership. Those looking for a populist reading on the topic will have to look elsewhere.
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Civil%20War
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RIDE%20ON
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How to turn your property into a holiday home
- Ensure decoration and styling – and portal photography – quality is high to achieve maximum rates.
- Research equivalent Airbnb homes in your location to ensure competitiveness.
- Post on all relevant platforms to reach the widest audience; whether you let personally or via an agency know your potential guest profile – aiming for the wrong demographic may leave your property empty.
- Factor in costs when working out if holiday letting is beneficial. The annual DCTM fee runs from Dh370 for a one-bedroom flat to Dh1,200. Tourism tax is Dh10-15 per bedroom, per night.
- Check your management company has a physical office, a valid DTCM licence and is licencing your property and paying tourism taxes. For transparency, regularly view your booking calendar.
DIVINE%20INTERVENTOIN
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What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
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COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Her most famous song
Aghadan Alqak (Would I Ever Find You Again)?
Would I ever find you again
You, the heaven of my love, my yearning and madness;
You, the kiss to my soul, my cheer and
sadness?
Would your lights ever break the night of my eyes again?
Would I ever find you again?
This world is volume and you're the notion,
This world is night and you're the lifetime,
This world is eyes and you're the vision,
This world is sky and you're the moon time,
Have mercy on the heart that belongs to you.
Lyrics: Al Hadi Adam; Composer: Mohammed Abdel Wahab
