LEBANON: a disastrous situation and enormous needs
Also reports from other regions of the world.
Nearly three weeks after the beginning of the conflict, the situation in Lebanon is disastrous:
more
than 600 deaths, 1,000 civilians wounded 750,000 refugees (more than 12% of the population), and
only 10% of needed humanitarian aid has arrived to the country by boat or plane: southern Lebanon
needs everything: food, medicines, water, clothes…
The Society of St Vincent de Paul is very active and well structured in Lebanon. Numerous
Vincentians have mobilized and have been able to constitute convoys to bring water, food, medicines,
baby milk for more than 500 families in the region of Marjeyoun.
But the first convoy has not been
able to reach the south because of the importance of the danger. But even though the Vincentians have
been commanded to get back, they have been able to give the goods to U.N. convoys.
Extremely
disappointed because the village of Marjeyoun has extreme needs and the inhabitants were expecting
this convoy, the Vincentians have not lost faith and new convoys have left on August 1st: a truck
loaded with food has reached Marjeyoun and a bus has loaded 50 alimentary packages to Kleya. The
Vincentians also visit Centres that welcome the Christians displaced from the South; they give out
food, clothes and underwear, hygiene items and even two washing machines; they distribute cakes
prepared by “Monsieur Vincent Traiteur”, one of the Society’s work.
The Vincentians who are working there share with us how awful the situation is, how great the poverty
that strikes these people is, but they also share the emotion they feel themselves when they assist these
persons.
Council General has launched, on August 1st, an appeal to generosity of all the Vincentians of the
world: we need your help now to assist those populations who have lost everything as soon as the
Vincentians are freer to work. This work will be done in cloth collaboration with the Superior Council
of Lebanon and also with the Council of France, who knows the region very well and has close and
solid links with Lebanese Society. For now, an immediate emergency aid of € 10,000 has been sent to
Lebanon.
