Six companies threatened, in a letter sent to the General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces to “stop providing food supplies [to prisoners] at the end of 2023," according to a statement published on the state-run National News Agency.

Dirani Group, Abdullah Group, Marcel Zakhia al-Duwaihy, Antoine Badawi Iskandar, Bernard al-Hayek Trading and Contracting and Hunida Elias Iskander are asking the Lebanese authorities to honor unpaid bills that have been accumulated since 2020.

“We [supply food] for prisons [in Roumieh, Zahleh, Tripoli and Baabda]. We present this letter to inform you that we will stop providing food supplies to the prisons on Dec. 31, 2023, as the contracting period ended without any new tender [between the ISF and the companies] and without a call for tenders being launched to secure the funds necessary to continue the work," the letter reads. The companies remind the ISF that they still have outstanding bills from 2020, 2021... 2022, and price adjustment bills for three months in 2023," it adds.

On Aug. 24, six catering companies had already warned in a letter addressed to caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi that they will halt providing foodstuffs to prisons if seven months of outstanding payments were not settled by Sept. 1.

In March 2021, Lebanon’s general prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat ordered a probe following press reports of a starvation risk in the country’s prisons.

This comes amid an economic crisis that has aggravated the already poor conditions inside Lebanon's prisons, where overcrowding and lack of medical care regularly cause protests and riots by inmates.