8A
Thursday, April 18. 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Displaced Lebanese waiting in wretched conditions
The Associated Press
atives in safe areas
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Calvary College & Seminary Choir & Bell Choir
Program at Grace Baptist Church
7:00, April 21
749-5294 256 N. Michigan
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The white-haired man reaches a trembling hand to a social worker. "Have you found my wife and children?" he says. "Please keep looking for them."
All Ahmed is one of 400,000 refugees, mostly Shiite Muslims, who fled south Lebanon last week after Israel warned that it would start bombarding villages as part of its campaign to wipe out Hezbollah guerrillas.
only three of his 11 children and told his wife to follow with the rest. Since Sunday, he hasn't heard from his family.
Others are living out of their cars on the banks of a lake in eastern Lebanon. In south Lebanon, some 6,000 refugees have sought shelter at headquarters and posts of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
"I cannot eat. I cannot sleep," he says. "I worry that something bad has happened."
In a hurry to leave his home near the port city of Tyre, Ahmed took
The conflict has displaced civilians on both sides of the border. But unlike wealthier Israel, where families at risk were taken to shelters often equipped with beds, TV sets and computers linked to the Internet, most of Lebanon's refugees are hiding in squarer.
less.
At present, there are no critical shortages of food or outbreaks of disease. But with 10 percent of Lebanon's 4 million people displaced overnight, the problems are sure to mount as the days pass.
But for the most part, Lebanese refugees have been housed in schools, usually five families to a classroom.
Many were displaced in a similar Israeli operation against Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon three years ago, which left almost 150 dead and 500,000 temporarily home-
When a worker with the Christian aid group Caritas stops by the Salma Sayegh Public School in Beirut, the Shite Muslim refugees besiege her with requests.
her sobs as she thinks of her husband, a Hezbollah fighter. She has had no word from him in days.
The lucky ones are staying with rel-
Ahmed gives her the names of his wife and his eight missing children. Others ask for shoes and mattresses.
Ghinwah Yassin, 26, tries to muffle
"I can't bear to listen to the radio, she says. "It's quite painful when you hear about the death and destruction."
But Ismail Badawi, 71, scoffs at such anxieties.
"I have two sons fighting with, Hezbollah," he says. "I told them if they come back alive I won't allow them to enter my house. If it weren't for my old age, I would have joined them."
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