Adeeb Rahma is welcoming and her spirit undiminished despite the five-week war that destroyed most of her home town of Aita Ech Chaab and forced her family to move for now to another town. “My husband and our eight children were told by the Israelis through loudspeakers to leave Aita Ech Chaab and our homes immediately … my daughter was still barefoot when we raced off in our pick-up,” said Adeeb, who had lived her whole life in the town. “We stayed 15 days in Rmaich with 55 people in a house, then 15 days in Sidon,” she said. “When we came back to Aita the inside of our house had been [destroyed] …” Read more about Amid the rubble, a Lebanese family works to rebuild normal life
Jamila Mehanna joined the rush back to her village in south Lebanon the moment the shooting stopped. Two weeks later she is living with other displaced Lebanese in a public building in Sidon, not sure when she will again be in her own house. “After the ceasefire came into effect, I went immediately with my kids to check out the house. I found the Israeli tanks at the outskirts of the village and so I turned around. I prefer to wait for the Lebanese army to take control before I go home,” she said. Amid the emphasis on getting daily convoys of UNHCR aid into battered villages and the return of most Lebanese to their homes, victims of the war like Jamila fear they could be forgotten by the refugee agency and other organisations. Read more about Lebanese who cannot return home fear being forgotten
Yesterday, UNHCR started an airlift from Jordan and Denmark to help rush tonnes of urgently needed relief supplies to Lebanon. The severely damaged roads along the so-called northern corridor into Lebanon from Syria - where we have a major supply base - via the Al Aarida border crossing, have slowed up our convoys and made it increasingly difficult to move supplies in bulk. The first flight - a Royal Jordanian Air force C-130 from Amman - arrived in Beirut on Thursday morning loaded with 14.76 tonnes of supplies including 9,000 blankets from UNHCR’s regional stockpile in Jordan, and boxes of drugs for the World Health Organisation. Read more about Lebanon crisis: Airlift under way
UNHCR’s first relief convoy - carrying 140 tonnes of emergency relief items for thousands of displaced people in Lebanon - arrived safely in Beirut on Saturday after making the journey from Syria. The supplies of blankets, mattresses and kitchen sets will be distributed rapidly in the mountain areas outside Beirut where tens of thousands of people are crammed into schools. “The arrival of this first convoy is really good news. We are relieved that our emergency supplies are finally able to enter Lebanon, and this is just the start,” said UNHCR’s representative in Lebanon, Stephane Jaquemet, as the convoy pulled into the Lebanese capital. Read more about First UNHCR relief convoy arrives safely in Beirut from Syria
UNHCR relief supplies for over 20,000 displaced and distressed people in Lebanon, including many living out in the open in parks or in overcrowded public buildings, are still blocked this morning in Syria awaiting a safe route into Lebanon. It is enormously frustrating to be right on the back doorstep of Lebanon and ready to move in with hundreds of tonnes of aid, but the door remains closed. We have hundreds of tonnes of tents, mattresses, blankets and other aid which could be delivered in a matter of hours if we only had access to the country. We are exploring every option and pressing to move these urgently needed relief items as soon as possible to where they are needed most. Read more about UNHCR relief supplies blocked at Syrian-Lebanese border
UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said Monday that his agency is positioning more than 500 tonnes of relief supplies along the Syria-Lebanon border but urgently needs assurances of safe passage to deliver the supplies to tens of thousands of displaced people. “The plight of the displaced in Lebanon is growing more difficult by the hour and it’s crucial that we get the humanitarian pipeline flowing now,” said Guterres. “UNHCR is trucking some 40 trailers loaded with over 500 tonnes of aid supplies from our regional warehouse in Jordan to Syria. It’s frustrating that we can’t deliver this aid, particularly when there are thousands of uprooted civilians in Lebanon who desperately need it.” Read more about UN refugee chief urges rapid response for Lebanon displaced
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Monday that his agency is positioning more than 500 tonnes of relief supplies along the Syria-Lebanon border but urgently needs assurances of safe passage to deliver the much-needed supplies to tens of thousands of displaced people. “UNHCR is trucking some 40 trailers loaded with over 500 tonnes of aid supplies from our regional warehouse in Jordan to Syria. It’s frustrating that we can’t deliver this aid, particularly when there are thousands of uprooted civilians just a few hours away in Lebanon who desperately need it.” Read more about Guterres urges rapid humanitarian response for Lebanon displaced
Conditions for fleeing Lebanese seeking refuge in the mountain areas north of Beirut are precarious, with relief supplies needed urgently to cope with the growing numbers of displaced, says the top UN refugee agency official in Lebanon. The problem is getting those supplies into the country. UNHCR teams are buying supplies such as mattresses locally for the time being, but are increasingly anxious for a safe delivery route into Lebanon so relief supplies can be delivered from outside. Tonnes of relief items were moved Friday and were en route to Damascus, Syria, on Saturday in a convoy from the agency’s stockpiles in Jordan. Read more about Precarious conditions in mountain shelters for fleeing Lebanese
A total of 244 Palestinians, including more than 100 women and children, stranded at the Iraq-Jordan border for the past two months were allowed into Syria on Tuesday. The group consists of 181 Palestinians who left the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in March fleeing death threats, intimidation and kidnapping. They were subsequently joined by additional families escaping the city. On April 22, the Syrian Government announced that it would welcome the stranded group into Syria, under the auspices of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which takes care of Palestinian refugees in the Near East. Arrangements for the transfer took two weeks given the security situation in Iraq and other formalities. Read more about Palestinians allowed into Syria after two months on the Iraq-Jordan border
Over the weekend, another 35 Palestinians decided to flee insecurity in Baghdad and travelled to the Iraq-Jordan border to join a group of 94 others who arrived there 10 days ago. On Saturday, a group of 25 including 2 children travelled twelve hours from Iraq’s dangerous capital to the border, while on Monday an additional 10 people, three adults and seven children, also made it to the border. None of the 35 was allowed access into Jordan. UNHCR staff in Baghdad spent several hours on the phone convincing Iraqi officials to allow the 35 to join the other 94 Palestinians near the Trebil border point just inside Iraq, which in the end was allowed. Read more about UN: "More Palestinians leave Baghdad for border"
