VARIOUS: Thousands flee Lebanon by road and sea.

Thousands of foreigners have been fleeing Lebanon on Tuesday (July 18) to escape Israeli air strikes which have pounded the country, some travelling by road to Syria, others waiting for places on U.S. and European ships. Sweden and the Netherlands said hundreds of their nationals had reached Syria. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish ship evacuations were also planned. One Norwegian evacuee waiting to board a bus to Syria said her family was worried about her safety. "My mum is very afraid for me and I don't want to be here if it gets worse," she said. Lebanese evacuees were also preparing to make the hazardous journey to Syria in a mass exodus to flee a seventh day of an Israeli bombardment which has killed at least 230 people in Lebanon, all but 26 of them civilians. The attacks were launched after Hizbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12. At least 24 Israelis, 12 of them civilians, have been killed in Hizbollah rocket attacks. France evacuated some 900 people from Lebanon to Cyprus on Tuesday in an operation cut short because of security concerns in Beirut. The 1,300-capacity Greek ferry Lerapetra sailed into Larnaca harbour on the Mediterranean island carrying some 300 less people than authorities had hoped it would bring. A French diplomat told Reuters the ship was supposed to bring back 1,260 people but for security reasons the doors had to be closed as night fell in Beirut. The majority of passengers on board the boat, which officials put at around 900, were French. Tuesday's shuttle brought out about 200 children, including 80 who were travelling without their parents and on vacations in Lebanon. Ambulances were on hand at the quayside of Larnaca port to assist heavily pregnant women off the vessel. A French woman said it had been "very difficult, very hard, exhausting." In Duesseldorf, Germany, relatives broke down in tears of relief to hug their families arriving on planes carrying evacuees from the Syrian capital Damascus in a joint operation between airline LTU and the German Foreign Ministry. The 320 passengers, including ten unaccompanied children, were taken to Damascus by bus after Beirut's airport was closed following Israeli airstrikes. In Duesseldorf, family and friends awaited the evacuees. Lebanese passenger Ali Alush told reporters at Duesseldorf airport "the children are badly affected just by the noise of the airplanes." "You can't imagine the fear these children are going through. We also don't know the fate of my family," Alush said, adding "I have a big family down there." Belgian nationals who had been evacuated from Lebanon waited outside the Belgian embassy in Damascus for news of their journeys home.

ITN Source | July 18, 2006

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