The
first to receive a crying baby, to give the child a toy, to
give her mother a rest, the first sympathetic face, the first
kind word, the first glass of water. That is how the Red Cross
will be remembered in Cyprus by the tens of thousands who fled
there from Lebanon.
As UN peacekeepers move into southern Lebanon, and the evacuees
return home, Red Cross volunteers in Cyprus are now getting
on with their own lives again.
They responded en masse to the call for help, after the Middle
East crisis began, helping to welcome and comfort well over
sixty thousand people, equivalent to nearly ten per cent of
the island’s population.
Hundreds of Cypriot volunteers set up relief points at the ports
of Larnaca and Limassol and airports of Larnaca and Paphos where
the evacuees all passed through, fleeing the war.
The volunteers kept the relief points going 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. On single days they coped with ten thousand
arrivals and departures.
“The volunteers were very well organised, enthusiastic
and dedicated,” says Tore Svenning from the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “There
are many human stories.”
Many of the evacuees have been children, who got special attention
and support from the volunteers. They distributed 22,560 jars
of children’s food, a thousand toys and 15,122 bars of
chocolate. Not forgetting six hundred toothbrushes.
Some of the children came alone.
“A young girl, about 12, was unaccompanied because her
mother didn’t want to leave her husband behind in Lebanon.
A Red Cross volunteer gave her a mobile phone to contact her
parents…the whole area was lit up with her smile.”
In fact, one of the most welcome services was that offer of
a free telephone.
The Cyprus Red Cross bought mobile phones and local telecommunications
companies donated free time.
There were those who lost their entire families in the shelling.
Tore Svenning recalled: “A young 22 year old Lebanese
man arrived from Syria. He only had one remaining relative,
a brother in Sweden. A volunteer took him home for a bath, a
short sleep, a little food.”
They also organised multi-lingual volunteers to be on hand and
set up stations right next to passport control. They had wheelchairs
available for the sick and the elderly.
This was very important, as many of the evacuees were the citizens
of other countries, in Lebanon for work or family reasons. The
Cyprus Red Cross supported them too, often in close contact
with the home Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies of the people
themselves and with the assistance of the International Federation.
At another level, the Cyprus Red Cross also helped the Civil
Defence run four camps, at the Vergina School and Zenon Athletic
Centre in Larnaca and at the Achna Dasaki, where the repatriated
were temporarily housed until their departure to their own countries.
The Red Cross provided snacks and something to drink as well
as soap, shampoo and towels for a quick shower.
Even now relief continues coming in and the volunteers are sorting
out clothing in case it is needed again. Either by those arriving
in Cyprus or if requested by the Lebanese Red Cross or the Lebanese
Government.
The Cypriot volunteers have received and are still receiving
compliments and “thank-you’s” not only from
the people voluntarily repatriated – but from foreign
Embassies and governments. They, just like the authorities in
Cyprus, know that they can depend on the Red Cross to look after
the humanitarian side of the operation, allowing them to pay
more attention to other aspects.
The Cyprus Red Cross is not a member of the International Federation
as such, but is a properly constituted national society formed
under a Red Cross Law, and working in strict conformity with
the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent Movement.
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The
first to receive a crying baby, to give the child a toy,
to give her mother a rest, the first sympathetic face,
the first kind word, the first glass of water. That is
how the Red Cross will be remembered in Cyprus by the
tens of thousands who fled there from Lebanon.The volunteers
kept the relief points going 24 hours a day, seven days
a week. On single days they coped with ten thousand arrivals
and departures. (p14609)
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Many
of the evacuees have been children, who got special attention
and support from the volunteers. They distributed 22,560
jars of children’s food, a thousand toys and 15,122
bars of chocolate. Not forgetting six hundred toothbrushes.
(p14611)
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