2.8. vastaanotetussa viestissä yhteistyöjärjestömme NISCVT - BAS suri Qanan (Raamatun Kaanaa) uhreja ja oli huolissaan siitä, että Libanonin jo aiemmin korkea työttömyys pahenee radikaalisti Israelin tuhottua tuotantolaitoksia ja pommitusten aiheuttama luonnonkatastrofikin kostautuu ihmisten elinmahdollisuuksiin. Mutta koko ajan avustustoiminta jatkuu leireillä kansalaisjärjestöjen yhdistettyä resurssinsa. Pommeja paenneitten perheitten lisäksi on avustettu myös niitä perheitä, jotka ovat ottaneet sukulaisia ja ystäviä asumaan luokseen. On vaikea kuvitella, millaisessa ahtaudessa leireillä nykyään eletään, kun väki entisestään lisääntyy.

 

Day 21…..<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Lebanon is still bleeding for more and more children, while those alive are waiting for a miracle maybe similar to the first miracle of Jesus fulfilled in miserable Qana. The supposedly 48 hours of suspended air strikes terminated last night and we are expecting more killing….

 

Sorry to keep you under stress with such horrible information, but we are sure that you can endure with us the journey through the "Trail of Tears"…. for those who don't know this story, (see the website under this title)… it took place long time ago in the country of freedom America, when a Red Indian tribe was ordered to leave its land for the new settlers and the order included taking a long trail to avoid passing through the white man's towns as it was not a nice scenery…so they had to take a long journey along a trail that was drenched with the tears of mothers who lost their children due to hunger and cold weather….well maybe history in a way or other repeats itself and our people must every few years in -Palestine and now in Lebanon- find their way through a new Trail of Tears…they are ordered in southern Lebanon to leave their villages or else will be severely punished , and they are in fact following a long trail searching for a way to safety through the destroyed roads and planes chasing them….

 

Back to figures on the ground…the death toll reached 828 people and more than 3500 injured, those are only the identified bodies as the toll does not include people still believed to be under rubble…Beirut airport is receiving planes from different Arab countries carrying aid supplies but they are only military planes no civil aviation is allowed…. Two field hospitals with its working team arrived from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and more ships are arriving from Europe as well…

 

As for distribution of aid supplies inside the camps which is carried by the combined committee of NGOs, distribution of cleaning material in Rashidieyeh was completed Shatilla received other shares of food supplies for 260 families while in Baalbeck and Burj El-Barajneh both displaced and inhabitants of those camps received their shares. We have to remember that a lot of families are hosting relatives and friends and their resources are limited. UNRWA completed distribution inside Burj El-Shemali and El-Buss both are very poor camps and are hosting a large number of families. UNRWA distribution will continue.

 

It is very clear that the increasing number of jobless people will create so much pressure on all levels. Farmers who left their villages, daily waged laborers, fishermen who can no more venture the sea, workers of destroyed factories, those who work in the tourism sector (estimated number of 100,000) and many others…. Among the bothering news is the environmental disaster after Israel's bombardment of a power plant on the coast of Jiyeh (between Saida & Beirut), which sent about 15,000 tons of heavy fuel oil spilling out into the Mediterranean and 25,000 tons are still on fire, which caused a toxic cloud over a 30 kilometre distance. It is considered the biggest environmental catastrophe that this sea has ever known, which will have bad consequences not only on Lebanon but all the countries on the eastern Mediterranean including Israel itself. The oil is now 70 kilometres away from Lebanon's 220 kilometre long coast reaching Haifa and Latakyia in Syria. Beaches and rocks are covered with sludge that no efforts for cleaning started yet due to the dangerous situation.

 

We always counted on your solidarity and are still doing….

 

NISCVT