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FROM THE FIELD

LEBANON: 'We want our country to become like Europe'
23 Jun 2009 08:42:00 GMT
 Source: MAG (Mines Advisory Group)
Website: Website: http://www.maginternational.org

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“We want our country to develop, to become like Europe.”
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“We want our country to develop, to become like Europe.”
MAG Lebanon

Background

•  Lebanon crisis

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By removing the cluster bomblets that were blocking access to agriculture and infrastructure, MAG has improved the economic potential of a community in southern Lebanon.

When the fighting in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israeli forces was over, Mahmoud Sharaf Eldine and his family returned to Kfar Tebnite to find their home damaged and cluster submunitions everywhere.

Like the rest of the town, which is located about 10 kilometres southeast of the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, they had abandoned the area as the conflict intensified.

They called the Lebanese Armed Forces, and teams from the army and MAG arrived in the days following, to remove and destroy the little bombs that lay on the roadway and gardens.

Last September and October MAG returned to Kfar Tebnite, supported by the UN Human Security Trust Fund, to clear more than 26,000 square metres of land, destroying six M77 cluster submunitions and five other items of unexploded ordnance.

MAG recently revisited Sharaf Eldine and found that a second floor is being built onto the house for his son's growing young family. With the fields now free from danger, he hopes the area will continue to recover.

"All countries in the world want peace," he said. "We want our country to develop, to become like Europe."

MAG's work also benefitted the rest of the town's 12,000 residents, who relied on the nearby water tower for their clean water.

The red concrete structure had been only lightly damaged during the war but, because cluster submunitions were still in the surrounding grass and rocks, workers could not freely access it for maintenance or repair until MAG made the land safe.

For more information and news on MAG's programme in Lebanon please go to www.maginternational.org/lebanon


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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Topics

•  Landmines and explosives

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Emergencies

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[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

Background information

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Lebanon

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