Unable to access his own savings, a Lebanese man recently decided to hold bank staff at gunpoint until management agreed to at least give him enough money to pay his father’s medical bills.
Lebanon’s devastating financial crisis was brought into focus this month by a very unusual story. Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein, a 41-year-old man from Beirut, was recently hailed as a hero after entering a branch of the Federal Bank in the capital city’s Hamra district and taking the staff hostage in order to coerce them into letting him withdraw his own savings. The stand-off ended peacefully after seven hours, and Hussein was allowed to withdraw $35,000 of the $210,000 in his bank account, which he claimed to need to pay his father’s hospital bills.
