Mass evacuation from bombed Lebanon gains momentum | International News | Reuters.com

Mass evacuation from bombed Lebanon gains momentum
Sat Jul 22, 2006 2:25 AM ET

By Michael Winfrey

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) - Ships and aircrafts worked through the night into Saturday scooping more tired and scared people from war-battered Lebanon and bringing them to safety in Cyprus and Turkey.

The Pentagon said 4,400 Americans had escaped from Lebanon on Friday by sea and air, the largest single day total to date in the operation to save foreign nationals trapped in the relentless cross-fire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

The amphibious transport USS Trenton, the biggest ship so far involved in the evacuation, deposited a further 1,800 people at the Cypriot port of Limassol in the early hours of Saturday.

Nearly 200 non-essential United Nations staff and their families walked ashore from a boat chartered by the world body.

British and Australian servicemen also stepped up efforts to rescue their nationals as Israel announced plans to allow aid agencies to deliver food and medicine to thousands of displaced people in Lebanon.

"In the next couple of days we are really going to start moving a lot of people through here," said Australia's High Commissioner in Cyprus, Garth Hunt, at the port of Larnaca.

"As far as we concerned, nobody should have to fend for themselves," he said after welcoming ashore nearly 350 Australians transported by a Maltese catamaran contracted by the Canberra government.

The British government, in an announcement carried by the BBC, said Saturday would be the last scheduled British maritime evacuation of U.K. passport-holders from Beirut.

It urged those wanting to leave to gather at a conference hall in the Lebanese capital between 8 am and 4 pm local time.

MAYHEM

Evacuees coming ashore described scenes of mayhem back in Lebanon, where many had been holidaying or visiting family when the Israeli rockets began falling 11 days ago.

"We were worried we would be stuck there for a long time. There were no ports, no airports working, there was no way out of Lebanon," said Ramon Jerbat from Victoria, Australia.

Tiny Cyprus is struggling to deal with the crisis and has appealed for more help from its European Union partners.

Help has also come from Cyprus's arch rival Turkey, which threw open its Mediterranean port of Mersin to take in Canadian, American and Swedish evacuees.

Locked in a decades-old diplomatic row, Turkey and the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government of Cyprus have no diplomatic relations.

"We are working at a capacity of about 1,000 people a day," Canadian ambassador to Ankara Yves Brodeur told Reuters.

Evacuees plucked from Lebanon by U.S. naval vessels and helicopters praised their rescuers' efficiency and kindness.

"I have to say everyone in the navy was incredible. They gave so much more than we expected. They carried our luggage, they gave us food, they did everything for us," said Rosana Ayoub, 22, a medical student from California.

The Pentagon said eight of nine U.S. ships slated to take part in the evacuation were now on the scene.

About 1,000 Americans were taken to a massive "camp-bed city" set up on a fairground in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia. Many were angry at not being told how long they would stay.

"They told me we might be able to leave tomorrow, or perhaps in a week," said Nejat Salah, a 37-year-old photographer from Los Angeles who held her daughter by the hand.

"If it's going to be like this here in Cyprus, perhaps I should start looking for a way to go back to Lebanon."

(Additional reporting by David Clark, Michele Kambas and Simon Bahceli in Cyprus, and bureaux in Turkey)