Lebanon under attack

25 July 2006

Karam Abi Yazbeck is Operations Manager for the YMCA of Lebanon, Y Care International’s partner. He co-ordinates one of Y Care International’s projects in the country, which works to empower disadvantaged and marginalised young people to actively participate in public life. Here, he writes about the current situation in Lebanon, and the effect the attacks are having on the YMCA and its work.

My country, Lebanon, is now under attack. The massive attacks are resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being displaced from their original villages and houses to new locations either in Beirut or other areas, which is leading to catastrophic results.

Destroyed roads

The roads connecting the villages with each other are being destroyed. No food or medicine or any other substance can reach those people that are still in their villages under attack. Also, those who were displaced to another location left their homes in such a hurry to save their lives that they did not even take anything with them – no clothes, no food, nothing …

They left their houses and are moving to wherever they can find a place to keep their children safe from the bombing; but they wake up the next morning feeling that they need to provide the necessities of life to their young to ensure survival.

Cannot reach youth groups

Work on our Civic Empowerment Project (CEP), supported by Y Care International, is at a standstill. We cannot reach many of the areas where we collaborated with youth groups. Young people, especially those living in the south and in the Bekaa areas, are under bomb attacks and their priority is to get out of this disastrous situation as soon as possible and provide shelter and food to their families.

Even in the areas where there is no bombing, there is no possibility to progress with the project. We have lost contact with many of the CEP youth groups even in Kesserwan, the closest area to Beirut, because attacks recently hit the telephone lines. We are trying to keep contact with them as much as we can, but now all the Lebanese people are focused on basic needs.

Ongoing attacks

I am not able to properly give a detailed and official estimate of the damage because the attacks are ongoing and the estimation will change from one moment to another.

All the country is in emergency situation, and everyone at the YMCA is working on relief activities.

Let us all hope that this situation will end and we will soon be able to resume our work normally.