Great Famine of Mount Lebanon

Common card · No. 406022

The Great Famine of Mount Lebanon (Arabic: مجاعة جبل لبنان, romanized: Majā'at Jabal Lubnān; Ottoman Turkish: Cebel-i Lübnan Kıtlığı جَبَلِ لُبْنَان قِیتْلِیࢰِی), also known as Kafno (Classical Syriac: ܟܦܢܐ, romanized: Kafno, lit. 'Starvation'), was a period of mass starvation on Mount Lebanon during World War I – between 1915 and 1918 – that resulted in the deaths of about 200,000 people, most of whom were Maronite Christians. There were many reasons for the famine in Mount Lebanon. Natural as well as man-made factors both played a role. Allied forces (Great Britain and France) blockaded the Eastern Mediterranean, as they had done with the German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe, in order to strangle the economy and weaken the Ottoman war effort. The situation was exacerbated by Jamal Pasha, commander of the Fourth Army of the Ottoman Empire, who deliberately barred crops from neighbouring Syria from entering Mount Lebanon, in response to the Allied blockade. Additionally,...

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