VARIOUS: UN urges aid as exodus from Lebanon peaks

The United Nations' emergency relief coordinator on Saturday (July 22) called on the international community to help the aid effort in Lebanon. Jan Egeland told reporters in Cyprus that at least $100 million was urgently needed to help avert a humanitarian disaster in Lebanon over the coming months. He said he would fly from Cyprus to Beirut aboard a British helicopter early on Sunday (July 23) to assess the situation there and to "urge and beg" international donors to stomp up food, medicine, water and other aid. Egeland described the situation as a major crisis with more than half a million directly affected. "This will be an appeal, urging, begging the international community to give us sufficient resources so that we can give enough medical relief, enough shelter material, enough food, enough water and sanitation services for those hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians who have had to flee," Egeland said. He added that the final cost of the relief effort remained unclear. Egeland said he would also travel to Israel on Tuesday (July 25) to negotiate safe corridors by land, sea and air and would urge both the Jewish state and its Hizbollah enemies to provide safe passage to aid convoys. That would entail repairing the bombed runways at Beirut's Hariri airport and establishing a staging area in Cyprus, where tens of thousands of foreigners have already fled to escape the violence in Lebanon. "At the moment, we are not able to get relief into the country in any quantities and even more importantly, we are not able to distribute it beyond certain few points which we can reach at the moment," Egeland said. Ships and aircraft continued to evacuate foreigners from Lebanon on Saturday (July 22) whisking more people fleeing the fighting in Lebanon to safety in Cyprus in a mass evacuation that now exceeds 25,000 people. Hundreds of evacuees have also been arriving in Turkey. Others have fled overland to Syria or been evacuated by military helicopter. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Sudanese were believed to be in Lebanon. About 1,500 have taken buses to Damascus. On Saturday a UN bus picked up Sudanese families outside the United Nations building in Beirut. One of the Sudanese evacuees, Sanad Muhammad Saleh, told reporters of their travels. "We came to Beirut through the United Nations which sent us to Tripoli and Batroun, no food, no water and even no secure shelters were assured. Now Jounieh is being targeted (by Israeli warplanes). The UN is not knowing how to act, and how or where to send the refugees," he said. Nearly 200 non-essential UN staff and their families walked ashore in Cyprus from a boat chartered by the world body. British and Australian service personnel also stepped up efforts to rescue their nationals taking 350 Australians on a Maltese catamaran contracted by Canberra Chartered ships were expected to bring 500 Australians, 1,100 Canadians and 400 Swiss to Larnaca later on Saturday. Britain said Saturday would be its last scheduled evacuation by sea of its passport-holders from Beirut and urged those interested to gather at a conference hall in the Lebanese capital during the day. Meanwhile humanitarian aid was being unloaded under military guard from a Greek ship in the port at Beirut. The Red Cross was also receiving aid supplies at their centre in Beirut. Supplies of food were delivered to households by ambulance. Officials said the French humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres planned to send 60 tonnes of emergency aid through Cyprus to Lebanon. France sent 20 tonnes of water, along with food and medicines, on Friday (July 21) to Beirut and planned to dispatch a water purifying plant on Saturday. Two Red Cross trucks loaded with medical aid crossed the Syrian-Lebanese border on Saturday en route to hospitals in Lebanon. The trucks, which came from Jordan, are just among the tonnes of much-needed aid pouring into Lebanon where fighting has left hundreds of wounded and thousands displaced from their homes.

ITN Source | July 23, 2006

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