Relief work nearly impossible without cease-fire, says CRS official

Published: 2006-08-04

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Without a cease-fire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, establishing humanitarian corridors to get relief supplies to hundreds of thousands of displaced people is near impossible, said a Catholic Relief Services official. "Humanitarian corridors have never been put into place," said Adib Faris, security manager for the CRS office in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. "The issue is access to those areas in the south where the conflict is," he said. Faris told Catholic News Service in an Aug. 4 telephone interview that relief organizations want humanitarian corridors, but without a cease-fire "there can be no guarantees by either side that relief workers can travel safely." There are about 900,000 displaced people in Lebanon because of the fighting in the southern portion of the country "and the number is increasing every day," he said. The figure cited by Faris is almost 25 percent of the 3.8 million Lebanese population. CRS is the overseas relief and development agency of the U.S. bishops.

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