CYPRUS: Frustration grows as delays and cancellations of specially chartered flights for evacuees from Lebanon leave scores stranded at Larnaca airport

Frustration grew as delays and cancellations of specially chartered flights for evacuees from Lebanon left scores stranded in the sweltering heat of Larnaca airport in Cyprus on Friday (July 21). Medical teams flown in especially to deal with the needs of their citizens said many were suffering from traumatic stress from having witnessed the bombings and the long ordeal of their evacuation. Most of the several thousands of evacuees were of Lebanese origin and have left family behind. They had been travelling for several days since the evacuation began. One group of 450 Swedish evacuees had been waiting more than 12 hours inside the airport terminal after a charter flight failed to arrive to collect them. Magnus Haggquist, a medical officer from Sweden said the evacuees were exhausted. "They are fleeing, they haven't eaten, they haven't slept, they have been on a boat for long and are stressed because of the war and they don't know about their relatives and so on," he said. One evacuee, Vera Hannah Erayess, said she and her family had been wearing the same clothes for four days after leaving their village in the Bekaa Valley. Food and sleep had been scarce. Many members of her family were ill, she said. "There were bombs outside our house and we run away. We packed our bags and we run away. Until now we are still running," said Vera Erayess. She said she was exhausted. "We are still like this for four days, without eating without sleeping no chair." Medical officials who were bearing the brunt of people's frustrations said there were not enough chartered flights to accommodate the huge flux of people arriving at the airport after arriving in Cyprus by ship. The flow of people leaving Lebanon for Cyprus is unlikely to slow down soon, with several more ships carrying thousands due to arrive in the coming days. Charter flights have been drafted in by foreign governments to get their citizens home but the sudden activity is testing the small airport in Nicosia to the full.

ITN Source | July 22, 2006

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