UPDATE - Protests In Lebanon Lead To Clashes With Police, Injuries In Tripoli

TRIPOLI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2021) Violence has marred protests in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli for the second consecutive day, as police resorted to tear gas to disperse demonstrators on Tuesday evening.

According to a Sputnik correspondent on the scene, several people have been injured in sporadic clashes with police outside the city hall.

Citizens of Tripoli, Lebanon's poorest and second-largest city, have taken to the streets in protest of harsh living conditions wrought on by the economic crisis. The demonstrators are also protesting the coronavirus lockdown, claiming it has impacted their livelihoods.

Protesters have blocked major highways into the city with burning tires. Army units are being summoned to take up positions for the second night running.

Images from Tripoli shared on social media show bloodied men being treated by emergency medics and protesters nursing rubber bullet injuries.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, protesters have blocked a major highway in the southern city of Saida as well as the main Masna' highway connecting the Bekaa region to the Syrian border, national broadcaster Al-Jadeed reported.

Authorities have recently prolonged a near-total nationwide lockdown, which was initially scheduled to end on January 25, through February 8 over the increasingly dire coronavirus situation in the country. Lax restrictions over the holidays saw large gatherings and parties held with little regard to the pandemic, which almost immediately resulted in a spike in infections from around 2,000 daily new cases to as high as 6,000. This has overwhelmed the country's already feeble health care infrastructure.

Lebanon has been undergoing the most severe economic crisis in its modern history, with a bloated banking sector and endemic government corruption sending the Currency tumbling down 80 percent of its value against the US Dollar. Increasing poverty and unemployment have driven people to the streets, sparking a major opposition movement in October 2019, but although two governments have resigned, little has been done to address the root cause of the crisis.