BEIRUT, Lebanon, AUG. 24, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The agency Aid to the Church in Need is bringing help to some 12,000 people trapped in a Syrian village just a couple miles from the Lebanese border.
The group made a €50,000 ($62,500) grant to provide food, medicine and other necessities to the village, just after their delegation in Lebanon met with Maronite Patriarch Boutros Rai.
The patriarch had just been informed of the villagers’ plight: food and other basic necessities have dwindled since the village was cut off due to the conflict raging in Syria. Roads and bridges have become impassable.
The emergency aid is a joint initiative between ACN and Catholic humanitarian organisation Caritas (Lebanon).
A Caritas report detailing the crisis describes a telephone call with a priest from the village who is quoted as saying: ‘“We have organised ourselves so we could stand by each other and we are sharing everything so we could survive. We need every help we could get. Please help us.”’
The document goes on to report people from the village now fled to Lebanon describing the situation back home: “Some people are starting to feel the hunger, children’s milk is running out, [there are] no canned goods, even children’s diapers no longer exist.”
The challenge of getting aid through was underlined by reports that motorcyclists trying to carry bread into the village were shot at. Nobody was killed.
The village cannot be named because of the risk to inhabitants.
