KSA, France launch €30 million fund in aid for Lebanon

The Minister for EU Affairs, The French Foreign Minister, the French Development Agency, and the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre have signed an agreement to launch a joint €30 million fund in support of Lebanon.

The Saudi-French project will fund a series of humanitarian and development initiatives in crisis-hit Lebanon.

The funds will provide emergency aid, focusing as a priority on food security and on facilitating access to primary healthcare to the most vulnerable, the French embassy said in a statement.

It added that the funds will especially support the main public hospital of Lebanon’s poorest city, Tripoli. The city has been hit Saturday by a deadly tragedy as an overpacked migrant boat capsized, stirring protests and unrest.

Saudi ambassador to Lebanon Walid Boukhari said "the funds will finance the 6 main sectors of food security, health, education, energy, water and internal security, without any sectarian differentiation."

The French-Saudi deal comes weeks after the return of the Saudi Ambassador, who had left Lebanon last October, following an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the two countries over a minister's critical remarks on the Saudi role in Yemen's war.