UN Says 500,000 Forced To Leave Their Homes In Lebanon

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UN Says 500,000 Forced To Leave Their Homes In Lebanon

 

 

 

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03:15 PM, July 19th 2006

by Playfuls Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As many as half a million people have been forced to leave their homes to escape the conflict in Lebanon, according to the latest United Nations estimates. "This is open war. The numbers are changing by the hour and it is difficult to estimate the exact numbers of internally displaced people, but we estimate it is around 500,000," UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Andrej Mahecic said Wednesday.

 

The UNHCR said an emergency team of up to 11 people was due to arrive in the region at the weekend to carry out further assessments. A skeleton staff had been left in the conflict zone, the rest had been moved to safer parts of the country.

 

A preliminary assessment of the situation in one area, the Shuf mountains, found that, of 60,000 displaced people, some 40,000 were living with relatives or friends. A further 20,000 were living in communal and public buildings.

 

Al-Arabiya news channel was reporting that 50,000 Lebanese had fled the south of the country for Beirut since the attacks started, with thousands more gathering in the port city of Sidon.

 

With stockpiles of relief supplies such as tents, plastic sheeting and blankets in neighbouring Syria and Jordan, UNHCR was well placed to respond to any immediate shelter needs, Mahecic said.

 

The numbers do not take into account many thousands of foreign nationals. In many instances their countries' governments have launched evacuation programmes to take them out of Lebanon.

 

Newspapers in Cairo said the Egyptian embassy would start evacuating from Wednesday 1,000 of its citizens who had travelled to Syria from Lebanon by bus on Tuesday.

 

According to the French Foreign Ministry, some 20,000 French nationals, including 5,000 tourists, are currently in Lebanon, adding that some 300 French nationals and other foreigners were set to leave Beirut for Cyprus aboard the French frigate Jean de Vienne.

 

Three other French ships were expected to pick up evacuees from the Lebanese capital by Sunday.

 

French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday demanded the opening of "humanitarian corridors" in strife-torn Lebanon.

 

These corridors would permit the movement of refugees within Lebanon, as well as enable foreigners currently in the country to be evacuated to Cyprus, Chirac told journalists in Paris after a meeting of his cabinet on the Mideast crisis.

 

A convoy of buses with 500 German nationals and their closest relatives left Beirut for Syria on Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry said in Berlin.

 

They were among 3,000 who gathered at a conference hall in Lebanese capital which the German embassy arranged as an assembly point for people fleeing the Israeli bombardments.

 

A foreign ministry spokesman said other arrangements were being made to evacuate those who did not find places on the buses.

 

A first batch of 320 German evacuees returned home Tuesday on a flight from the Syrian capital of Damascus.

 

They spoke of chaotic conditions at the border with Syria where they had to wait eight hours before continuing their journey by road to Damascus for their flight to Germany.

 

The German Ambassador in Damascus Volkmar Wenzel told Deutsche- Presse Agentur

 

"We have plans for 2,000 people. We will try to fly them out of Damascus or from other airports," Wenzel said.

 

Volkmar said those who could not fly immediately out of Damascus would be accommodated, adding that the Syrian authorities had promised to help in getting German citizens across the borders.

 

"We are using all possibilities, charter and military flights, to take them back home," Wenzel said.

 

The German Government had charted several aircraft to pick up more evacuees from Syria, according to the foreign ministry.

 

Around 2,000 German citizens have been trapped in Lebanon since Israel launched its military offensive.

 

Meanwhile, dozens of Germans, Australians, Americans and Canadians gathered at Beirut's port area to await their evacuation from Lebanon.

 

"There's panic. Everyone who has the opportunity wants to leave this hellhole," one of those waiting, Ali Sabeh, a German of Lebanese descent, said.

 

"The Israelis are attacking everything that moves," Manal Rawade, of joint Lebanese and Canadian citizenship, said.

 

A Canadian embassy employee said that all those of the some 40,000 Canadians who live in Lebanon wishing to leave would have left the country by Friday.

 

Port authorities said that one US-registered ship had arrived to evacuate 750 US citizens and that they were expecting many more ships from other countries.

 

The British Foreign Office said that by Wednesday morning, a British vessel had taken 200 British citizens to Cyprus.

 

Britain's Ambassador to Cyprus Peter Millet rejected criticism that the evacuation was progressing too slowly. "We did not want to rush bringing out British citizens until we knew we could do it safely. We have got far more people in Lebanon than many other countries," he told Britain's BBC news network.

 

The BBC reported that the remaining 5,000 British citizens in Lebanon would leave by sea in the coming days.

 

The Illustrious aircraft carrier, which can carry more than 1,000 people, was preparing for a mass evacuation, the BBC said.

 

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said that about 50 Irish citizens were still in Lebanon Wednesday. A further 100 Irish people had arrived in Dublin earlier Wednesday after being bused to Damascus the day before and flown home via Dubai.

 

Beirut's international airport can no longer be used after the Israelis attacked it. The main road between Beirut and the Syrian border has also been bombed in many places.

 

The UN Children's Fund UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed serious concern Wednesday about civilian casualties and new risks to health from escalating violence in Lebanon and Israel.

 

They said they were aware of up to 30,000 people sheltering in public buildings around Beirut.

 

Civilian deaths included dozens of children, with many more injured, a statement said. The movement of medical supplies and ambulances to the affected areas was difficult.

 

Unobstructed access for humanitarian assistance was critical to stave off needless death and suffering, and the protection of civilians during conflict was an obligation under international humanitarian law, the statement said.

 

A joint appeal for short-term funding is expected to be launched by the UN agencies in the coming days.

 

© 2006 DPA