Middle East News: Woman holds up Lebanese bank for $13,000 of her own money, advocacy group says – Gulf Digital News

Middle East News: Woman holds up Lebanese bank for $13,000 of her own money, advocacy group says – Gulf Digital News

BEIRUT - A brief hostage situation at Lebanon's BLOM Bank ended on Wednesday when an apparently armed woman and her associates left the bank carrying more than $13,000 in cash from her own account, a source from a depositors' advocacy group said.

Shortly thereafter, an armed man entered a branch of Bankmed in Lebanon's mountain city of Aley and attempted to retrieve his trapped savings, the advocacy group Depositors Outcry and a security source told Reuters.

The security source said the man had been able to retrieve a portion of his money before he handed himself over to security forces and was detained.

Bankmed declined to comment while BLOM Bank confirmed in a statement that the hostage situation had ended but did not give further details.

Security forces were not immediately available for comment on both incidents.

Lebanon's banks have locked most depositors out of their savings since a financial crisis took hold three years ago, leaving much of the population unable to pay for basic needs, and the government has so far failed to address the crisis.

Wednesday's incidents come roughly a month after a man in mid-August held up another Beirut commercial bank to withdraw his own funds to treat his sick father.

Around 11:00