BAALBEK, Lebanon: Following a string of violent robberies and killings in recent months, Baalbek-Hermel residents are taking security into their own hands while renewing calls on the government to take action.

Shop owners have been repeatedly robbed at gunpoint and personal disputes have escalated into armed clashes with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades, spreading fear among residents and bringing commercial activity in the city to a near standstill.

Asaad Qaraa, the head of the Gathering of Baalbek Residents, a local civil society group, said that the situation in the city has reached a “very dangerous level.”

“Shops in the city’s neighborhoods begin closing at 6 p.m. and all forms of activity come to a halt,” he told The Daily Star.

Qaraa said that local Baalbek figures were spearheading efforts to find a radical solution to the spike in criminal activities, but he was not optimistic.

He said that security could not be improved without a heavy state presence in social, economic and security matters, “but it doesn’t seem like that will happen in the foreseeable future, given the spreading chaos and how any personal dispute now seems to become an exchange of gunfire.”

Another prominent Baalbek figure taking part in efforts to restore security noted that around 35 percent of families Baalbek-Hermel live under the poverty line.

The man, who declined to give his name, said that the area had become a hub for networks of car thieves, drugs smugglers and armed gangs.

Last month, armed clashes broke out in Baalbek after members of the Jaafar family kidnapped an individual from the Rifai family, killing one person involved in the abduction and a Palestinian child in the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of al-Jalil.

A number of other violent incidents shook the district earlier in the fall.

Syrian national Duna al-Hayr, 55, was killed in Baalbek during a robbery and a girl caught in the middle of a dispute at a mobile phone shop in the Hermel village of Shawagheer was also killed. Two Lebanese men, Abbas Raad and Hussein Yaghi, and a number of Syrian workers were robbed shortly after arriving in Lebanon.

A supermarket in the village of Bidnayel to the west of Baalbek, a restaurant in the village of Duris, and a roastery and a gas station in Baalbek were also targeted in robberies.

Maher Kiwan, a Lebanese, was kidnapped and released and a high school principal in upper Hermel was assaulted by students.

With the spike in crime, residents are acquiring guns to protect themselves and their property and holding strikes to bring attention to their plight.

Prominent figures from the city and Baalbek-Hermel MPs met earlier this month and urged the government to take action, while stressing that those responsible for the crimes were not being protected by any political faction.

Last week, around 600 merchants and shop owners staged a demonstration in front of Baalbek’s Serail to protest the deterioration of security in the city, following the municipality’s call to strike.

Mohammad Kanaan, the head of the Shop Owners Association in the Bekaa, held security bodies and the judiciary responsible for security lapses, accusing them of “negligence.”

“The city residents have decided to start a movement to direct the attention of officials to what’s happening in the city, so that their shops do not turn into arms caches for their own protection,” he said.

Kanaan called on Interior Minister Marwan Charbel to visit the city at the soonest to see the situation for himself.

Baalbek’s Mayor Hashem Othman said that steps were being taken to improve security in the region.

He explained that a delegation from the municipality and the city’s civil society organizations had visited Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn to underscore the “dangers” plaguing the district.

Ghosn, said Othman, expressed his surprise with the level of crime and contacted the Lebanese Army command, requesting that they increase security measures in the area.

“This [strict security measures] was clearly observed by the visiting delegation and [was also demonstrated] by more checkpoints especially at night,” he said. “This is a real start to ending to this problem which has caused suffering and affected all aspects of life.”