Saudi Arabia has declared that it will not allow Lebanese fruit and vegetable imports to enter the country, claiming that they are increasingly being used to smuggle drugs. The ban came into effect on Sunday, and will remain in place until Lebanon can guarantee that it has done what is needed to prevent drug-trafficking.
Also on Sunday, Saudi Arabia frustrated an attempt to smuggle millions of captagon pills – an amphetamine drug – in a shipment of pomegranates arriving from Lebanon. The shipment reportedly originated in Syria, and was later shipped from Lebanon.
Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, Waleed A. Bukhari, tweeted that the quantities of drugs discovered with the pomegranates were “enough to drown the entire Arab world in drugs and psychotropic substances, not just Saudi Arabia.”
On Monday, the Lebanese government asked the Saudis to reconsider the ban.
The kingdom’s ban has hit Lebanon as it is drowning in one of the worst crises in its history. The country, which endured and survived 15 years of civil war between 1975-1990 to devastating effect, now is being crushed under the twin weight of political dysfunctionality and a catastrophic economic situation. And COVID-19 isn’t helping.