As displaced Lebanese return home, CRS coordinates assistance efforts

Published: 2006-08-17

ROME (CNS) -- As those displaced by the fighting in Lebanon returned to their hometowns, Catholic Relief Services and other international aid agencies were sending assessment teams throughout southern Lebanon and were meeting to coordinate their efforts. David Snyder, spokesman for CRS in Beirut, said in a telephone interview Aug. 17 that "90 percent of the people" housed in shelters during the monthlong fighting "left within the first 48 hours of the cease-fire," which began Aug. 14. "Many shelters are down to a handful of people," said Snyder. CRS is the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency. After providing shelter, food, clothing and medicine in the shelters, CRS and the other aid agencies are shifting their focus to meeting the needs of returnees, many of whom are going back to houses destroyed or damaged, without electricity and clean water. "Everyone is trying to figure out what to do next," Snyder said. "Close coordination is essential" so that efforts are not duplicated and "no one is left out in the shuffle."

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