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UN rushes more emergency aid to south Lebanon while helping Lebanese in Syria

UN rushes more emergency aid to south Lebanon while helping Lebanese in Syria

WFP food aid in Damascus
The United Nations sent more emergency humanitarian convoys to southern Lebanon today as the World Food Programme (WFP) said it was distributing food to almost 7,000 Lebanese who have fled the worsening conflict in their homeland and are now living in schools and abandoned buildings in the Syrian capital Damascus.

The United Nations sent more emergency humanitarian convoys to southern Lebanon today as the World Food Programme (WFP) said it was distributing food to almost 7,000 Lebanese who have fled the worsening conflict in their homeland and are now living in schools and abandoned buildings in the Syrian capital Damascus.

“Today, UN humanitarian aid convoys left for Sidon and Tyre. To date, the UN has dispatched nine such convoys to south Lebanon from Beirut – delivering 280 tons of food, enough for 80,000 people for one week – as well as medical kits and shelter materials,” UN spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in New York.

He also said that a measles campaign supported by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) would start tomorrow for displaced children in Beirut, while the World Health Organization (WHO) is looking into supplying antiretroviral drugs for some 200 HIV/AIDS patients, also in the Lebanese capital.

Mr. Fawzi stated, regarding UN humanitarian convoys, that the Organization is “receiving good co-operation from all sides, including the Israelis.”

He added that the UN seeks practical advice from the Israeli side on a regular basis about the passage of convoys in order to protect them amid military activities. “We assess that advice and then make our own decision about whether a convoy should proceed. So far, the United Nations has had to call off two convoys. This was based on our own assessment, which in turn was based on advice from all relevant parties,” he said.

In neighbouring Syria, where around 200,000 Lebanese have sought safety from the past three weeks of conflict, WFP said it started distributing food aid yesterday to nearly 7,000 civilians from Lebanon who are now living in Damascus.

“These people who have fled Lebanon have been through a harrowing experience. Some came to Syria with nothing but the clothes on their backs and are in need of a tremendous amount of support,” said Pippa Bradford, WFP’s Representative in Syria.

Current projections indicate that the number of refugees needing food aid in Damascus could rise to 20,000 people in the coming days, while WFP will also start distributing food today in central and northern Syria, the agency said in a press release.

Also on the humanitarian front, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it had begun drawing up plans for the creation of temporary tented camps in Beirut because the growing number of displaced people in the Lebanese capital was putting a strain on housing.

“A tented site may not be the ideal solution for the displaced,” said Stephane Jaquemet, UNHCR’s representative in Lebanon, “but there is an urgent need to find alternative housing, given the increasing needs and the fact that almost all public schools in the country are presently occupied by IDPs [internally displaced people]. Children will need to go back to school soon.”

The Lebanese Government’s Higher Relief Committee says about 550,000 displaced people are living with families, while some 130,000 are living in organized shelters – mainly schools.

Elsewhere in Lebanon, UNHCR said its staff were continuing to supply emergency aid to the needy, adding that today’s UN convoy to Tyre carried among other humanitarian items, 1,000 blankets and 500 mattresses from the agency.

In the past three weeks in the Middle East, violence has forced around 1 million people to flee their homes – an estimated 800,000 in Lebanon alone – and hundreds have been killed. Lebanon’s Government said recently that 620 people had been killed and 3,225 injured, while Israeli authorities have said 56 people have been killed and 1,733 wounded in the northern part of the country.