http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/29/MNG5FK7J1Q1.DTL&feed...

A crisis of 'unbelievable proportion'
20-25%% of Lebanese are now refugees, economy chief says

Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times

Saturday, July 29, 2006

(07-29) 04:00 PDT Rmeish, Lebanon -- They moved in cars and on tractors,
waving white pieces of cloth, along high mountain roads pocked with craters
from bombing and shelling. Mortar fire boomed a constant beat from the next
ridge, in Israel.

The refugees were part of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fleeing
violence in the southern part their country, creating a humanitarian crisis
that their government says is now bigger than it can handle. The United
Nations estimates that between 500,000 and 700,000 Lebanese have been
displaced, a giant number for a tiny country of 3.5 million.

"The scale of the problem is of an unbelievable proportion," said Sami
Haddad, the Lebanese minister of economy. "We have between 20 and 25 percent
of our population that is turned into refugees. What government can cope
with that?"

The immediate problem is one of infrastructure. The entire Lebanese school
system is filled with people seeking shelter, according to Haddad, and
school begins again in two months. With the vast scale of the destruction,
even if the war stopped tomorrow, the country would still face a housing
shortage for 100,000 to 200,000 people whose homes have been leveled, he
said.

But while hundreds of thousands are sleeping in schools, local parks,
municipal buildings and relatives' houses, the plight of civilians who have
stayed in the south -- either out of fear or an inability to leave -- is the
worst of all. In southern Lebanon, the scene of the heaviest fighting,
people are stranded without food, power or, in some towns, clean water.

In Rmeish, a Christian town less than a mile from the Israeli border,
refugees living in garages, storefronts, churches and schools begged Friday
for food, water and medicine. A greenish pond in the middle of town now
serves as drinking water. The faces of some children are spotted. Yellow
fever, according to residents, has begun to surface.

Refugees in the basement of the Tajali Church rushed at visitors, pressing
empty medicine boxes into their hands and calling out names of sick people.

"Look, this is our water," shouted Aiteshab Jawad, a mother in a green
hijab, holding up a container of brownish fluid. "Our children are vomiting.
Help us!"

A man who identified himself as a member of the local government, Elie Hajj,
said that about 6,000 townspeople were stranded in Rmeish, with 7,000 more
villagers who had come to the town, thinking it would be safe because it is
largely Christian.

The flight has picked up as the fighting has intensified. In Tyre, the city
that is the first relatively safe stop after an extremely dangerous route
along the border itself, about 1,000 refugees spilled into town on Friday
alone, said Ghaswa Naami, who is helping to coordinate relief. That is up
from between 200 and 300 people in the early days of the conflict, she said.

In Sidon, another large coastal town north of Tyre, refugees are gathering.
The park outside the local government building is filling, said Muhamed
Chamseddine, who had traveled through the city after taking his family north
early Friday morning.

"Three or four days ago it was normal, but today it was something very
strange," he said, describing a crowded scene in the center of town. "I was
really shocked."