“It is impossible to meet the needs of more than a million people suddenly displaced, displaced and dispossessed without additional resources,” Matthew Hollingworth says, WFP Country Director for Lebanon (From Beirut): “This is not a well-prepared country because of all the challenges it has faced over the years. So it will be a struggle.”
One week since the United Nations launched the campaign Appeal for $426 million To help those affected by the Lebanese crisis, the donation amount has been reached just over 12 percentequivalent to 51.4 million USD.
Aid teams are committed to helping all those in need and especially the most vulnerable, but Mr Hollingworth warned that many of them are having to flee their homes as fighting escalates rapidly. had no choice but to leave their homes with nothing.
Uprooted in a moment
“[We’ve had] terrible cases of mandatory evacuation notices given in just a few hours for people to prepare and leave,” Mr Hollingworth said.
The families displaced in the past year “who have prepared themselves… are far better off than the vast majority today, who have left with in some cases only hours to spare before the area of They were bombarded.”
In the context of intense Israeli bombing of Beirut and southern Lebanon in connection with the war in Gaza, seven districts in the southern frontline area of the country bordering Israel and the southern suburbs of Beirut were absent “ hundreds of thousands of people,” the veteran aid worker said. “Many towns, villages and suburbs [are] Currently nothing but ruins.”
Pay the final price
Afterward COVID-19 and the devastating port explosion in Beirut in 2020, poverty levels have skyrocketed in a country struggling to absorb more than a million Syrian refugees, amid a protracted political crisis.
In a new call to stop the violence in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond, Jeremy Laurence from the United Nations human rights office, OHCHRsaid that civilians continue to pay “the ultimate price, whether it is hospitals closing, a million people displaced, civilians killed, schools affected; The devastation is unbelievable for all the people in Lebanon as well as in Gaza. We cannot let this happen again.”
‘choc-a-block’ shelter
According to WFP, more than 200,000 people are currently living in 973 official shelters in Beirut and the north of the country. Some 773 of these are “completely full,” Mr. Hollingworth said, adding that people in the south decided to relocate not only because their land and homes had been destroyed but because they had lost “family, friends and community and they were extremely afraid of what will happen next.”
The aid agency’s update comes amid reports Hezbollah continues to fire rockets into the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Tuesday. The armed group has fired rockets into northern Israel since the outbreak of war in Gaza, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis.
Health care is under attack
According to United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), Seventeen attacks on medical and health workers since September 16 have left 65 dead and 42 injured.
More than 96 health care centers and medical facilities were forced to close in the South. Five hospitals are currently not operating “due to damage to facilities or infrastructure”, it said WHO‘s Ian Clarke, Deputy Incident Director for Lebanon.
Speaking via video from Beirut, he added four hospitals had been partially evacuated to maintain emergency services, with patients requiring critical dialysis and cancer care being transferred to other hospitals. other institute.
United Nations humanitarians have stressed the need to maintain land, air and sea access for Lebanon, which depends on imports for most of its needs.
According to the report, 1,900 hectares of farmland have been burned in the south of the country over the past year and “mainly in the last few weeks,” WFP’s Mr. Hollingworth said. In addition, 12,000 hectares of farmland in one of the country’s most productive regions has been abandoned and some 46,000 farmers are severely affected by the crisis. “The olive harvest in the South will not happen, the banana harvest, the citrus harvest will not happen,” he noted.
