Many Lebanese fleeing the troubled country choose to take cargo ships to Turkey rather than fly from Beirut’s airport.
This is written by the news agency AFP, which has spoken to people on the run and, among other things, a captain on a ship.
Many see the sea route as safer than a flight from the airport.
31-year-old Hassan Alik sets off from the port city of Tripoli, which lies on the Mediterranean.
– I’m leaving here because I’m afraid to go via the airport, he says.
– If I buy a plane ticket, the airport may be bombed.
Tripoli has so far escaped the Israeli bombardments in the rather small country, which all Danes are urged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to leave immediately.
Nor has Lebanon’s only international airport in Beirut been hit by attacks.
But Israel’s military warned last month that the airport could become a target for attack as Israel wants to put an end to arms supplies to the militant movement Hezbollah, it said.
Muammar Malas, 52, who comes from northern parts of Lebanon, says he is fleeing the country by ship “because it is difficult to reach the airport in Beirut”.
In addition, it is “very close to the southern suburbs”, he explains. It is an area where Hezbollah is strong – and which Israel often attacks.
The large ships in the port of Tripoli used to carry goods to the southern coast of Turkey five times a week.
But about a year ago they also started taking passengers, says Captain Salem Jleilati.
Tickets are sold for prices equivalent to approximately DKK 2,400, he continues. The trip takes 13 hours.
Since September, when Israel began seriously intensifying the airstrikes, demand has increased significantly. Now there are around 900 passengers a week against the previous 150, says the captain.
It was September 23 that Israel began the much more intensive airstrikes in Lebanon.
Later, the country also sent soldiers into the land.
Apart from the national carrier Middle East Airlines, most airlines have stopped flying from Beirut’s airport, which was the target of an Israeli attack in 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel were last in a major war.
About a million people have fled the violence across Lebanon, according to authorities.
At least 1,454 have died, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
– The best thing to do now is to flee Lebanon, says 22-year-old Mohammad Hawar on his way on board a ship.
/ritzau/AFP
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
