What are Countries Doing to Get Nationals Out of Lebanon?

Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon. Nikolay Doychinov, AFP
Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon. Nikolay Doychinov, AFP
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What are Countries Doing to Get Nationals Out of Lebanon?

Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon. Nikolay Doychinov, AFP
Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon. Nikolay Doychinov, AFP

Western nations have drafted contingency plans to evacuate citizens from Lebanon after a dramatic escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, coupled with Iran's missile attack on Israel on Tuesday.
No country has launched a large-scale military evacuation yet, though some are chartering aircraft as Beirut airport stays open, reported Reuters.
Here are details on contingency planning:
AUSTRALIA
It has organized hundreds of airline seats for its citizens to leave Lebanon, and has flown military aircraft to Cyprus as part of a contingency plan. Its contingency plans could include evacuation by sea, though authorities have urged an estimated 15,000 citizens in Lebanon to leave while Beirut airport remains open.
BELGIUM
Belgium's foreign ministry has advised citizens to leave as soon as possible, the Belga news agency said.
CHINA
More than 200 Chinese citizens have been safely evacuated by the government, China's official Xinhua news agency said.
CANADA
News reports from Canada suggest it will co-operate with Australia in evacuating nationals by sea. The plan involves contracting a commercial vessel to ferry out 1,000 people a day, the Toronto Star newspaper said.
CYPRUS
Cyprus has asked Greece to provide an aircraft to help evacuate its nationals who wish to leave. There are an estimated 1,000-1,500 Cypriots in Lebanon, though the number wishing to leave is estimated at far lower.
FRANCE
France has not issued an evacuation order, despite having had plans for several months. Present contingency plans center on Cyprus and Beirut airport, while it is also discussing evacuations via Türkiye. France has a warship in the region, while a French helicopter carrier will arrive in the eastern Mediterranean in the coming days and take up position in case a decision is taken to evacuate foreign nationals from Lebanon.
GERMANY
Germany has evacuated non-essential staff, families of embassy workers and German nationals who are medically vulnerable from Lebanon and will support others trying to leave, the foreign and defense ministries said in a joint statement on Monday.
GREECE
The Greek foreign ministry has urged its citizens to leave Lebanon and avoid any travel there, with a frigate on standby in case assistance is needed.
ITALY
Italy has cut diplomatic staff and beefed up security personnel at its Beirut embassy. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has repeatedly urged nationals to leave the country and sought assurances from Israel over the safety of Italian peacekeepers in the area.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands will send a military plane to repatriate nationals from Lebanon with two flights on Oct 4 and 5, the Dutch Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. The flights to the military airbase in Eindhoven will also be available for people from other countries if there is enough room to accommodate them, it said.
POLAND
Poland will limit staff numbers at its Beirut embassy, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding that Warsaw would organize transport for citizens wanting to leave Lebanon.
PORTUGAL
Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has advised against travel to Lebanon, which assisted in the evacuation of a small number of Portuguese citizens living there.
SPAIN
Spain plans to send two military aircraft to evacuate as many as 350 citizens from Lebanon as early as Thursday .
Türkiye
Türkiye is ready for a possible evacuation of Turks from Lebanon via air and sea, and is working with about 20 countries for a possible evacuation of foreign nationals via Türkiye. About 14,000 Turkish citizens were registered at the consulate in Lebanon, but the number was not definitive.
UNITED KINGDOM
Britain has urged nationals to leave immediately. It has moved about 700 troops to Cyprus, bolstering its military assets, including two Royal Navy ships. It also has two military bases on the island. Britain chartered a flight on Wednesday for its nationals, and additional charter flights are to follow, diplomatic sources said.
UNITED STATES
The United States has ordered dozens of troops deployed to Cyprus to help prepare for scenarios such as an evacuation of Americans from Lebanon. It is working with airlines to add flights out of Lebanon, with more seats for Americans, the State Department said on Tuesday.



As Flooding Becomes a Yearly Disaster in South Sudan, Thousands Survive on the Edge of a Canal

Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
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As Flooding Becomes a Yearly Disaster in South Sudan, Thousands Survive on the Edge of a Canal

Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)

Long-horned cattle wade through flooded lands and climb a slope along a canal that has become a refuge for displaced families in South Sudan. Smoke from burning dung rises near homes of mud and grass where thousands of people now live after floods swept away their village.
“Too much suffering,” said Bichiok Hoth Chuiny, a woman in her 70s. She supported herself with a stick as she walked in the newly established community of Pajiek in Jonglei state north of the capital, Juba, The Associated Press said.
For the first time in decades, the flooding had forced her to flee. Her efforts to protect her home by building dykes failed. Her former village of Gorwai is now a swamp.
“I had to be dragged in a canoe up to here,” Chuiny said. An AP journalist was the first to visit the community.
Such flooding is becoming a yearly disaster in South Sudan, which the World Bank has described as “the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change and also the one most lacking in coping capacity."
More than 379,000 people have been displaced by flooding this year, according to the UN humanitarian agency.
Seasonal flooding has long been part of the lifestyle of pastoral communities around the Sudd, the largest wetlands in Africa, in the Nile River floodplain. But since the 1960s the swamp has kept growing, submerging villages, ruining farmland and killing livestock.
“The Dinka, Nuer and Murle communities of Jonglei are losing the ability to keep cattle and do farming in that region the way they used to,” said Daniel Akech Thiong, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
South Sudan is poorly equipped to adjust. Independent since 2011, the country plunged into civil war in 2013. Despite a peace deal in 2018, the government has failed to address numerous crises. Some 2.4 million people remain internally displaced by conflict and flooding.
The latest overflowing of the Nile has been blamed on factors including the opening of dams upstream in Uganda after Lake Victoria rose to its highest levels in five years.
The century-old Jonglei Canal, which was never completed, has become a refuge for many.
“We don’t know up to where this flooding would have pushed us if the canal was not there,” said Peter Kuach Gatchang, the paramount chief of Pajiek. He was already raising a small garden of pumpkins and eggplants in his new home.
The 340-kilometer (211-mile) Jonglei Canal was first imagined in the early 1900s by Anglo-Egyptian colonial authorities to increase the Nile’s outflow towards Egypt in the north. But its development was interrupted by the long fight of southern Sudanese against the Sudanese regime in Khartoum that eventually led to the creation of a separate country.
Gatchang said the new community in Pajiek is neglected: "We have no school and no clinic here, and if you stay for a few days, you will see us carrying our patients on stretchers up to Ayod town.”
Ayod, the county headquarters, is reached by a six-hour walk through the waist-high water.
Pajiek also has no mobile network and no government presence. The area is under the control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, founded by President Salva Kiir’s rival turned Vice President Riek Machar.
Villagers rely on aid. On a recent day, hundreds of women lined up in a nearby field to receive some from the World Food Program.
Nyabuot Reat Kuor walked home with a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of sorghum balanced on her head.
“This flooding has destroyed our farm, killed our livestock and displaced us for good," the mother of eight said. “Our old village of Gorwai has become a river.”
When food assistance runs out, she said, they will survive on wild leaves and water lilies from the swamp. Already in recent years, food aid rations have been cut in half as international funding for such crises drops.
More than 69,000 people who have migrated to the Jonglei Canal in Ayod county are registered for food assistance, according to WFP.
“There are no passable roads at this time of the year, and the canal is too low to support boats carrying a lot of food,” said John Kimemia, a WFP airdrop coordinator.
In the neighboring Paguong village that is surrounded by flooded lands, the health center has few supplies. Medics haven’t been paid since June due to an economic crisis that has seen civil servants nationwide go unpaid for more than a year.
South Sudan’s economic woes have deepened with the disruption of oil exports after a major pipeline was damaged in Sudan during that country's ongoing civil war.
“The last time we got drugs was in September. We mobilized the women to carry them on foot from Ayod town,” said Juong Dok Tut, a clinical officer.
Patients, mostly women and children, sat on the ground as they waited to see the doctor. Panic rippled through the group when a thin green snake passed among them. It wasn't poisonous, but many others in the area are. People who venture into the water to fish or collect water lilies are at risk.
Four life-threatening snake bites cases occurred in October, Tut said. “We managed these cases with the antivenom treatments we had, but now they’re over, so we don’t know what to do if it happens again.”