The TWA passengers leave Beirut and head for Damascus in ICRC vehicles (Agence France Presse)
On 20 May, the day after the fighting began, ICRC delegates and relief workers from the Lebanese Red Cross tried to get into the camps to evacuate the wounded. But despite urgent appeals to all parties to observe a cease- fire, it was still extremely difficult to enter the camps and the ICRC found it impossible to protect and assist all victims.
Access was possible only to Borj el Brajneh camp. On 20 May only five casualties were evacuated from Haifa hospital; on 22 May, an operation during which 13 wounded and an escort were evacuated was suspended because of frequent bursts of gunfire within the camp. Despite lengthy negotiations on the previous days aimed at ensuring that the cease-fire would be observed, a con- voy of ICRC/LRC ambulances had to turn back from the entrance to the camp on 26 May. The following day, 14 casualties were evacuated during a brief period of calm. In the course of this operation, delegates noted that a
Beirut: the war in and around the camps (Keystone)
large number of wounded remained untended in Borj el Brajneh.
At the height of the battle, ICRC and Lebanese Red Cross relief workers were able to enter the camps only seven times, evacuating 188 casualties. Ten delegates, 40 relief workers and 20 vehicles were kept on standby every day. The ICRC was finally able to enter Chatila on 19 June, after the fighting had stopped and after several weeks of fruitless negotiations; on that day 58 wounded were brought out.
A total of 300 people were evacuated during this period, 205 of them being seriously wounded.
Surveys were regularly conducted in the dispensaries and hospitals in Beirut and the surrounding areas; medical supplies and equipment worth Sw.fr. 200,000 were dis- tributed during this period. More than 25,000 people received blankets, family parcels and cooking utensils.
Tripoli: a city marked by war
15 September 4 October: confrontations between the militia were the most violent that Tripoli had experienced for several months. The city was pounded daily by artillery fire, causing a great deal of destruction. Once again, thousands of families had to abandon their homes and flee to safer areas. After having been cut off from the rest of the country, Tripoli was finally accessible on 4 October.
At the moment fighting broke out, two delegates, one nurse and one radio operator were in the city. Until 27 September, they made regular visits to hospitals and dis- pensaries to evaluate needs and to distribute medical equipment and medicines. But then the intensity of the fighting forced them to stay in their shelter, from 28 Sep- tember onwards. There, they set up a first-aid post, and kept in contact with hospitals, to which they sent emer- gency supplies.
The Lebanese Red Cross assisted the wounded in its first- aid posts throughout the city, two of which were hit by
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