AP News, May 24th, 2007
U.N. relief officials appealed Wednesday for safe access to the Palestinian refugee camp at the center of a standoff between Islamic militants and the Lebanese army and urged the government to exercise restraint in civilian areas.
"What we want to see is access for humanitarian actors and humanitarian goods to the camp to enable basic supplies to reach people," said John Holmes, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator and undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
Holmes also emphasized the need for evacuation of the wounded.
The U.N.'s last attempt Tuesday to send a convoy into the Nahr el-Bared camp in northern Lebanon during a short-lived truce was met with violence. Holmes said it was unclear who was responsible for the crossfire that injured civilians and caused the U.N. to abandon its convoy.
"We need to get in to see what the needs are there and start repairing the damage if the truce holds," said Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, known as UNRWA.
She said that basic supplies such as milk powder and bread reached civilians from the first convoy, but that workers could not get a good sense of the situation inside the camp because they had to flee from the violence.
"Our real worry is health, the public health," she said. "There's been no water or electricity since Sunday and we don't know what's happening until we get in, get the wounded out and can treat them."
AbuZayd said UNRWA was sending two emergency officers from the West Bank and Gaza to Lebanon to help negotiate better access to the camp to provide adequate aid.
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Associated Press Writers Scheherezade Faramarzi and Sam F. Ghattas contributed to this report from the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon.
