NICOSIA, 22 July 2006 — Thousands of foreigners huddled in makeshift transit centers yesterday, weary but relieved, as governments around the world ramped up a mass evacuation from the raging conflict in Lebanon.
Warships, cruisers and ferries crisscrossed the eastern Mediterranean from ports in Lebanon toward Cyprus and Turkey, packed with refugees, while planes brought more back to their homelands.
Convoys of buses meanwhile headed toward Syria, or from the war-torn south toward the north which has been less badly hit by Israel’s offensive against the Shiite Hezbollah movement, now in its 10th day.
“You see these situations on TV and feel sorry for the people. Now we are the ones that feel like refugees,” said mother-of-two Brenda Fawaz, 41, at a transit camp in Nicosia set up to handle an estimated 6,000 American nationals expected in the coming days.
“My children were scared — we stayed inside most of the time. In America you don’t see things like that,” added Fawaz, from Tampa, Florida.
A UN-chartered cruise ship docked in Larnaca, Cyprus, early yesterday carrying 900 UN staff, dependants and other evacuees from 46 different countries. Among those on board are: 167 Lebanese, 120 French, 97 Germans, 88 Swedes, 83 Dutch, 76 Americans and 32 Britons. Also docked at Larnaca was the US navy transport vessel USS Nashville with 1,000 mostly US citizens aboard, bringing the number evacuated out of Lebanon via Cyprus in the past 24 hours to almost 2,000.
Another 4,500 Americans were due to depart on three ships, assisted by US Marines operating in Lebanon for the first time since pulling out after a bomb attack on their Beirut barracks by guerrillas in 1983. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said 2,000 French and other nationalities had been extricated from Lebanon in an evacuation program set up by Paris.
But she said around 400 French were trapped in southern Lebanon, where the fighting has been fiercest and deadliest.
“There are some 400 French who are in the southern regions and for whom we will mount an operation in the hours and days that follow,” she told RMC Info radio.
A further 454 French returned by plane early yesterday to Paris. France says a total of 8,000 nationals have indicated they want to leave.
In Britain, the Defense Ministry said about 2,800 people in total had been rescued from Lebanon by British forces since it began its operation, including just over 1,000 who docked late Thursday in Cyprus on board HMS Bulwark.
That warship, along with two others, was shuttling the 160 kilometers between Lebanon and Cyprus, with London saying it intended to evacuate 5,000 people in all by the end of the week. Of those, some 750 have flown back to Britain so far.
Germany said a further 280 nationals had landed back home overnight while air force planes were heading to Damascus to pick up another 1,000. It has so far evacuated some 3,500 Germans.
Three flights from Larnaca brought 400 evacuees, including 265 Italians, to Rome overnight. The government said only some 300 Italian nationals were left and the Foreign Ministry was trying to ensure they would be able to leave by a humanitarian corridor if necessary.
Three passenger ferries brought 736 Canadians to Mersin, southern Turkey, some of around 2,000 Canadians expected to return home via that country, while Mexican diplomats in Istanbul were trying to organize the repatriation of 113 nationals who arrived overnight by bus via Syria.
Nine countries — Australia, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Moldova and Sweden — are organizing operations via Turkey.
A group of 108 Bulgarians were driven by bus to Syria, adding to an earlier group who had made the trip Thursday. Another 27 were ferried to Cyprus, while 222 Romanians arrived in the early hours in Bucharest, bringing to nearly 500 the total evacuated since Israel’s offensive began.
