Lebanon Running Out of Fuel, Food, Water, Aid Agencies Paralyzed

BEIRUT, Lebanon, August 11, 2006 (ENS) - The UN World Food Programme appealed again today for a halt to the month-long hostilities by both Israel and Hezbollah to allow the delivery of urgently needed relief assistance. Food, fresh water and fuel are running perilously low in Lebanon.

"Our aid operation is like a patient starved of oxygen – facing paralysis, verging on death – if we can’t open up our vital supply lines to help an estimated 100,000 people stranded south of the Litani river," said Zlatan Milisic, World Food Programme, WFP, emergency coordinator in Lebanon.

"We are all the more worried, because we have been given to understand that there is no point in WFP even applying for concurrence to go to Tyre, one of the areas of highest concern," Milisic said.

On July 26, a UN relief convoy was able to offload at Tyre, but humanitarian access to the southern Lebanon city is now cut off by heavy fighting. (Photo by Omar Aboud courtesy WFP)

Stressing that Israeli civilians and ordinary Lebanese are the "biggest losers" in the conflict, the UN's top emergency official called it a "disgrace" that Hezbollah and Israel are preventing humanitarian supplies from getting through to more than 100,000 people in the devastated south of the country.

Speaking in Geneva, Jan Egeland said there are over 200,000 people throughout Lebanon who humanitarian workers have been unable to reach because of the escalating violence. "Civilians were supposed to be spared and in this conflict they are not," he said.

"We have not had any access for several days to the besieged population of southern Lebanon. It is a disgrace really, because the parties to the conflict, the Hezbollah and the Israelis, could give us access in a heartbeat and then we could help 120,000 people in southern Lebanon," he told a press conference Thursday.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland (Photo courtesy UN)

Describing the fuel shortages in Lebanon as "becoming dramatic and threatening to paralyze all lifeline systems," the UN World Health Organization, WHO, is supporting the national authorities and working with other agencies to provide safe drinking water, vaccines and other essentials to the rapidly increasing number of displaced people.

WHO has purchased enough fuel to meet the needs of hospitals in the south for 10 days, and is ready to deliver it but still the security situation makes delivery extremely difficult.

WHO continues to urge all sides to allow safe passage of humanitarian relief, including fuel. Without it, hospitals will not be able to perform life-saving operations, keep vaccines cold, or run incubators for newborns. Hospitals report that diminishing fuel supplies are a major concern, and that oxygen and food for patients and staff are in short supply.

In an effort to prevent disease outbreaks, displaced children who fled to Beirut are receiving vaccines. The Lebanese Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education, along with the WHO and UNICEF, launched a measles and polio vaccination campaign Wednesday in Sanayeh Park, which is home to some 1,000 people who have been displaced by the fighting in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The campaign targets children living in areas such as the park, as well as those living in schools and institutions. More than 150 vaccination teams from local NGOs and the Lebanese Red Cross will canvas the city this week.

UN and Lebanese health workers vaccinate a boy in Beirut against measles and polio. (Photo by Chris Black courtesy WHO)

The health agencies hope to reach 100,000 children across the country in the coming weeks.

More than 900,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday that 500,000 are sheltering in and around Beirut "moving from one part of the city to another as the bombing continues."

Few people remain in southern Lebanese villages and many of those who initially moved to southern cities have now fled further north to escape the fighting.

A combination of 70 bridges destroyed and the denial of "concurrence on safety" by the Israeli Defense Force for aid convoys is crippling WFP’s efforts, on behalf of the entire humanitarian community, to organize overland transport of relief items, including food for the one-quarter of the Lebanese population displaced from their homes.

Despite the enormous difficulties, UN humanitarian agencies continue to do what they can. A spokesman in New York said 15 trucks carrying relief items traveled from Beirut to the town of Baalbek Thursday, but he confirmed that another convoy was unable to go to Nabitiyeh in the south after failing to get clearance from the Israeli Defense Forces.

Explosions in the distance beyond the Tyre waterfront area, Southern Lebanon, July 20, 2006. (Photo courtesy UNIFIL)

Highlighting the deaths of aid workers in Lebanon, Egelund said it is one of the worst places in the world in terms of getting aid to those most in need.

Despite the immense challenges, the World Food Programme has succeeded in bringing some aid to Beirut by air. A Portuguese Air Force C-130 Hercules, flew four rotations for WFP from the UN Humanitarian Depot in Brindisi to Beirut airport last weekend, and this week, a French military C-160 aircraft has begun flights from Cyprus carrying emergency assistance on behalf of WFP.

Two ships are also expected in Beirut port over the coming days with food and other supplies. A WFP-chartered Greek vessel, the Anamcara, will dock in Larnaca on Saturday with a cargo of WFP high energy biscuits and supplies for World Vision and Caritas.

Another ship, the Kazim Genic, is sailing from Mersin, Turkey, and carrying 2,750 metric tons of wheat flour, pasta and pulses. Both are due in Beirut over the weekend.

Thomas Keusters, WFP Head of Logistics in Lebanon, said, "We need to open as many supply routes into the country as possible in order to widen our options."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is working "very intensely" with Security Council members and key leaders to push for a resolution to the conflict.

A spokesman for Annan issued a statement in New York Thursday saying the diplomacy is taking place "both here and in capitals."

In the statement, Annan repeated his long-standing call for an end to hostilities, saying, "The fighting must stop to save civilians on both sides from the nightmare they have endured for the past four weeks."