NAHR AL-BARED - Aid organisations were working on Friday to disinfect and shore up buildings still standing in north Lebanon's Nahr al-Bared refugee camp after a 15-week army siege of Islamists left most of it in ruins.
"We hope that a first group (of Palestinian refugees) may return in two days. That depends on the speed of restoration of the buildings that are still upright," Khalil Mekkawi, head of the Committee for Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue, told AFP.
Mekkawi, who organised a first visit on Friday by journalists to the devastated camp, said the UN refugee agency UNRWA was in a position to ensure generators to provide electricity and water from reservoirs for those residents who would be returning soon.
Some 31,000 Palestinian refugees fled the camp in the first weeks after fighting broke out on May 20 between the army and Fatah al-Islam, leaving most of the buildings in ruins.
"We are disinfecting the buildings which have been marked as habitable," Red Crescent employee Mohammad al-Siyyad, said, guarding his mouth with a mask. He would not say how many were involved.
Fighting ended on September 2, and Lebanese troops have since been hunting militants who may have escaped and also clearing the area of unexploded ammunition and mines.
Nearly 400 people, including at least 222 Islamists and 167 soldiers, died in the clashes, and Lebanon has since asked for international aid of more than 300 million dollars to rebuild the camp.
Evidence of the fighting could be seen everywhere by journalists allowed to penetrate some 400 metres (yards) into the camp, along a route on which military vehicles were stationed.
Burnt and shell-pocked buildings, remains of vehicles, collapsed balconies, destroyed service stations, shattered shop windows marked the road, while in the distance the remains of collapsed buildings were visible.
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment