'There is no hope': the slow disintegration of Lebanon

After civil war, decades of corruption and then the blast that ripped through Beirut this summer, things could hardly get any worse. But they have

In early September, Mohammed Khaldoon sold a necklace his sister had given him and scrounged what he could from friends and family. He gave the sum total, $400, to a smuggler in his hometown of Tripoli, northern Lebanon, and took to sea, with 49 others in a rickety boat headed for Cyprus.

He left without saying goodbye," said Fatima Mohammed, who gave him the necklace. The boat was small but the smuggler said it was only needed for a 200-metre trip and then they would move to a bigger one. He took all their food, water and bags and left them with nothing."