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LEBANON BLOG
12 Oct 2006
Source: AlertNet
Mark Snelling visited Lebanon for the British Red Cross, and wrote about his impressions.
Day 2
About 13 kilometres east of Maroun El Ras, the people of Ayta Ashaab are beginning the long, slow journey back to something resembling normal life. Most of the 10,000 permanent residents fled during the fighting, seeking sanctuary at the Lebanese Red Cross centre and school buildings in nearby Rmeish.
We're so close to the border here, our mobile phones pick up an Israeli network.
With characteristic resilience, almost every one is now back. But the stories of what they found are becoming depressingly familiar. "When we came back, we saw the destruction," local municipality official Ali Zein tells me. "There was nothing at all, no water, no electricity. The damage was about 97 percent."
Aside from distributions of food and other items, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has also rehabilitated three major water treatment plants and pumping stations in the area and conducted emergency repairs to bombed pipelines across the region. Mobile generators are helping restore water supply to hundreds of villages. Red Crescent Societies from Qatar, Morroco, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also active in the area.
"We sincerely appreciate the role the Red Cross played during the war, but the nature of the war and the weapons used made it hard for everybody," Zein says. During the fighting, Red Cross access was difficult, despite the concerted efforts of the ICRC in Beirut to secure a humanitarian corridor, especially for Lebanese Red Cross ambulances.
Yet in the face of overwhelming odds, the Lebanese Red Cross continued to run its ambulance service, carrying out more than 900 war-related evacuations and more than 8,200 emergency medical transfers. One first-aid volunteer was killed on August 11 and several ambulances suffered hits, two of them direct strikes.
The Lebanese Red Cross and its volunteers are now - quite justifiably - regarded as heroes. It's an overused word, but one gets the sense here that people truly mean it.
"I'm very thankful," says Galeb Ibrahim Srour who was evacuated by the Lebanese Red Cross ambulance first to Tyre and then to Beirut. The 19-year-old was hit by shrapnel when he tried to go out to get food for his family trapped in their house by the fighting. "We were under siege from every direction," he says.
We sit talking on the balcony of his family's house, looking out over the dust and rubble of what is left of this village. There is a large unexploded bomb in the pulverised remains of their next-door neighbour's house. Amid this carnage, the family still apologises to me that they cannot offer me food because Ramadan has started. I am startled by the comment, then moved, then deeply humbled. Grace, humanity and generosity of spirit are, despite everything, alive and well here.
Back in the coastal city of Tyre, about 40 minutes drive north, the magnitude of the Lebanese Red Cross operation during the war becomes ever more apparent.
"The worst thing was that the shelling never stopped," says Sami Issam Yazbek, the head of the Tyre Lebanese Red Cross centre. "Every time our ambulances moved in a certain direction, the road in front of us was shelled. Despite the emblem and the blue lights, we were still hit."
The volunteers, he tells me, worked in shifts during the war, sleeping an average of three hours a night. "They worked with high spirits and bravery. They were very strong." The calls they dreaded, though, were the ones that turned out to be beyond their capacity. If houses had collapsed, for instance, they had no equipment to move rubble.
"We had to learn from our volunteers who had previous war experience," he says. Harsh lessons, indeed.
To read Mark's Day 1 blog click here
To read Mark's Day 2 blog click here
To read Mark's Day 3 blog click here
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Last updated:Fri Oct 13 08:52:32 2006