UN and other humanitarian agencies step up relief

As the number of people fleeing Lebanon rises along with the number of displaced people, the UN and other aid agencies are gearing up to assist the needy. The UN's refugee agency, UNHCR is planning a multi-million dollar operation for the region. "This will be a phased operation, starting immediately with the deployment of emergency mobile teams, and then building up as the situation requires," said Ekber Menemencioglu, UNHCR's director for the region. With stockpiles of emergency relief supplies in Jordan and Syria, UNHCR says it provide items such as plastic sheeting, tents and blankets to refugees and hundreds of thousands of displaced people within Lebanon. A total of 100,000 people have fled to neighbouring Syria, most of them are Syrian nationals, the UNHCR says, as well as Lebanese and other foreigners. However, there is no accurate breakdown of nationalities that have left. “The figures are changing all the time as war is raging on and these are estimates,” said UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Andrej Mahecic. UNHCR says there are some 20,000 Sudanese and Iraqi asylum seekers in Lebanon. “We are facilitating access to shelters for them,” Mahecic said. Two other UN agencies, the UN’s Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and the World Health Organisation, WHO, say they are planning to provide emergency medical kits to hospitals, as well as generators and fuel to hospitals and schools where displaced people in Lebanon are sheltering. UNICEF’s Communication Officer in Beirut, Soha Boustani, told IRIN on Thursday that the people most in need are in Hizbullah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon, who have been cut off from the rest of the country because roads have been bombed in Israeli airstrikes. Hizbullah, is mainly a shi’ite political party with an armed militia. In 2005, it won all 23 parliamentary seats in the south of the country. Hizbullah also provides extensive social assistance to the needy population in Lebanon. The strikes started on 12 July after Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers in protest at Lebanese prisoners being held in Lebanon. “Over-crowding in school shelters and lack of access to safe water poses a threat of acute respiratory infections, water-borne diseases and the spread of contagious diseases such as measles. Urgent medical supplies and some nutritional support will be needed to support displaced families…as 400,000 people have fled their homes," said a UNICEF statement. Another UN agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), says it has sent a team to Lebanon to see if it could reach people in areas worst-affected by the Israeli strikes. Many of the major roads and bridges that allow the food supply chain in southern Lebanon - a region heavily reliant on imported wheat supplies – have been destroyed. More than 100 villages and towns have been targeted in sea, land or air attacks, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). A convoy of relief aid arrived in the southern Lebanese coastal city of Tyre on Friday. The ICRC said it sent more than 20 tonnes of food and other items by road from the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Although many foreigners have been evacuated from Tyre, the ICRC says some are still stranded there, along with many Lebanese. LH/ED/CB