Local relief outfit helps stranded disabled people

Disabled people in southern Lebanon are facing difficulties evacuating their towns and villages, which are subject to Israeli missile barrages on a daily basis. “This crisis has been harder on the handicapped, who find it more difficult to find help,” said Mohammed Lotfi, relief programme coordinator for the Lebanese Physically Handicapped Union (LPHU). “And the services they used to rely on have been harder to get since the fighting began.” The LPHU has helped evacuate disabled people from affected areas since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the armed wing of a Lebanese political party, began on 12 July. The organisation caters people suffering from physical, visual and mental disabilities, including autism and Down's syndrome. Lotfi, who has been blind for most of his life, said, “The LPHU has also provided medication, food and other essentials, such as wheelchairs,” but had lost contact with many of its members in the south, particularly in the port city of Tyre and Nabatiyeh, about 50km northwest of Tyre, where the bombing has been severe. Disabled people cannot officially apply for medical help without a special card issued by the social affairs ministry. “But handicapped people who have left their homes and are now displaced can’t get the services they need because no one will issue them cards,” Lotfi said. “The LPHU doesn’t benefit from anything the social affairs ministry does.” The organisation’s relief programme has volunteers who visit the disabled in their homes or at places where they have sought refuge, such as schools or relatives' homes. Ongoing air, land and sea attacks by Israel are making relief efforts that much more dangerous. “It is harder for a person who has a disability to evacuate from one town to another on their own,” Imad el-Deen Raef, the head of LPHU's relief programme in Beirut, told IRIN. “Many people who have handicapped relatives have left their relatives in the fire zone and fled the bombing. Their fate is unknown. We are trying to establish connection with them." When the conflict began the relief agency worked on moving the most vulnerable disabled out of towns and villages in the line of fire. “We used to move them to places we would think would be safer,” he said, “but in reality you see that nowhere is safe." LH/AR/AM/ED/HE