Title : Lebanon, One year On

Date : 25 June - 2 July 2007
Production : Laurent Graenicher (camera) Roland Sidler (Producer)
Length : 9'48'' minutes
Copyrights : ICRC - Access All


For broadcast tapes and information on footage: Virginie Louis, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva,

This report will be distributed free-to-air and rights free on 11 July 2007 over the Eurovision News Exchange ENS slot at 11h45 GMT and Eurovision Worldfeed satellites at 1400 GMT. It is free of rights and free of charge to all broadcasters in Europe (W3A), the Americas (NSS806) and Asia (Asiasat2)

SHOTLIST

LIVING WITH CLUSTER MUNITIONS

00:00 Destroyed Houses. Town of Sediqine
Rebuilding, reconstruction work
Lorries loaded with building materials
00:44 Hezbollah flags and panels
Recheknanay Village, 1'700 inhabitants, 20 km South of Tyr. (25 June 07)
01:00 Carpenter Workshop, men unloading truck with wood logs
01:26 Hamad Hassan, 23 years old, a carpenter victim of a cluster munitions comes around the corner of the workshop and paints a chair.

On the site of the accident, Hamad shows how he wanted to move away the cluster munitions with a stick.

INTERVIEW Hamad Hassan (Arabic)
« I brought the stick, it was lying there. I wanted to push it aside because there were children over there. I preferred to do so, in order for it not to explode in children’s hands. I brought the stick closer and I pushed it on the side, like this. It suddenly exploded and I was blown away on the rock, my foot was injured »

« My situation has changed a lot. Nowadays I cannot work as I used to. I cannot work in building or do something else. Because of my foot, I cannot work for others anymore as they’ll tell me « your leg is broken ». Of course, with such accident one feels psychologically bad. It is not like it used to be »

Hamad shows his wounded leg

03:07 various of cluster submunitions and unexploded ordnance (September 2006).
03:18 Clearance team at work. Recheknanay village areas (29 June 07).

Cyprien Fabre, Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid - ECHO talking with deminor Jean-Claude Amand from FSD, Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.

IN SOUND (French) Cyprien Fabre – ECHO : "ça a été cultivé après le conflit ?"
IN SOUND (French) Jean-Claude Amand – FSD : " Tout à fait. Ils ont pris des risques, ils ont trouvé eux-mêmes sept sous - munitions pendant qu'ils travaillaient, ils l'ont marqué. donc j'attends qu'ils viennent pour couper le blé et à ce moment là j'interviendrai pour neutraliser les sous-munitions, les retirer. Nous avons quand même trouvé une douzaine le long de la route, sur un peu près 200 mètres, nous avons trouvé une douzaine d'engins "

INTERVIEW Cyprien Fabre, Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid - ECHO (French)
"Tous les efforts de reconstruction de retour à la normalité sont empêchés par le problème des sous-munitions. Tout le sud du Liban a été tapissé de sous-munitions, on estime qu'il y en a un million qui n'ont pas explosé et les gens ne peuvent pas aller aux champs, le retour dans les maisons est compliqué"

Suggested translation
"All reconstruction efforts and initiatives for a return to normal life are obstructed by the problem of submunitions. South Lebanon was covered with cluster bombs, estimated up to one million which did not exploded. People cannot go to their fields, the return in their homes is complicated "

04:03 deminors clearing fields
04:37 Jean-Claude Amand – FSD – preparing an explosion set-up for the destruction of 3 neutralised submunitions. Countdown. Explosion.

REPARING WATER SUPPLIES

05:30 Eastern Lebanon, Beeka valley, border with Syria
05:43 Ouazzani Water Station entrance with ICRC jeep
05:48 Ouazzani water source, Khiyam area, South East Lebanon, near the border with the occupied Golan. This source is located in a valley downhill from an Israeli settlement and is used by Lebanese inhabitants and Israeli settlers.
06:07 Majdel Achjar City.
06:23 INTERVIEW of Hassan Dib Saleh, Mayor of Majdel Achjar in Beeka Valley (28 June 07)
"When there are power cuts, there is no water and no electricity. As soon as the water gets to the citizen, we think "great water has come" it last for an hour and then it's over, there is no water anymore".

06:42 « An hour ago, I was in contact with ten responsible of municipalities in the area, as we are requesting the authorities support to solve our water and electricity problems. If we can’t find a solution to this problem so that we can provide our people with what they need, we will have to go down the streets and make ourselves heard by the government and the state »

07:10 Mayor going to the sink to wash his hands, there is no water coming out.
07:32 Various shots of Chamssine Water Station, old parts, new pipes installed by the ICRC to pump groundwater

08:04 New water tank partially destroyed, Ouazzani water station.
08:10 Lebanese army truck passing by
08:17 Fields and sheep surrounding the water station.

08:30 INTERVIEW Fadi el Ahmad, young farmer , Ouazzani village
“Everyday, we have a great water consumption. Water is really the most important thing in our lives as we own a lot of animals and fields. There all have great needs for water and we must provide them with sufficient water”

08:45 ICRC car near Ouazzani water station. Destroyed water-pump station, with newly repaired aisles. Interior of water station with water pumps and pipes. Views on new tanks.
09:35 UNFIL troops patrolling near by Ouazzani water station.
09:48 ENDS

STORY

Lebanon : One Year On

One year after the outbreak of hostilities that opposed Hezbollah and Israel during the summer of 2006, the situation in the South of Lebanon remains tense. The civilian population continues to bear the consequences of this conflict. A lot of work is still needed to repair housing, the road network and the water-supply infrastructure. But the reconstruction work is obstructed by thousands of unexploded bomblets still polluting the areas.

Despite this danger, people have had to continue living in these areas and farmers have had little choice but to plant their fields. Hamad Hassan was injured when a bomblet he had tried to remove exploded near his leg, hitting his leg and foot. He now has to live with a paralysed leg and is finding it hard to support his parents and four sisters.

A large international effort is under way to rid Lebanon of cluster submunitions as soon as possible. Over a thousand deminers from dozens of different organizations are involved. Teams from the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action - FSD (http://www.fsd.ch ) are an important part of this vital effort. They are supported by ECHO whose officer Cyprien Fabre says: "All reconstruction efforts and initiatives for a return to normal life are obstructed by sub-munitions. People cannot go to their fields; the return in their homes is complicated".

A cluster munition canister can contain hundreds of submunitions that scatter over a wide area. The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of submunitions in Lebanon did not detonate. Of the over 200 civilian victims since the end of the war, the majority of injuries and deaths were due to such submunitions. More figures can be found from the Mine Action Coordination Centre South Lebanon, MACC SL (http://www.maccsl.org).

Submunitions dropped in populated areas make unintended victims long after the fighting ends. People in the affected area can never feel safe, knowing that these weapons can destroy their lives at any moment.

Cluster munitions also cause long-term economic hardship. The lethal unexploded remnants of war have by now been cleared from many roads and urban areas, and work is continuing to clear fields. Submunitions may lie on the surface, be buried underground, or even hang tangled in the branches of trees.

In a very tense environment, engineers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have carried out substantial repair work on water stations damaged in last summers’ intense bombings. The surroundings of the Ouazzani water source are dry. This source feeds the Masbani River in South-East Lebanon and is located near the occupied Golan in the area of Khiyam. The water source lies in a valley, downhill from an Israeli settlement and its well is used by the Lebanese population and Israeli settlers.

Ouazzani water station, only a few kilometres away from the water well, was partially destroyed by Israeli bombings during the summer of 2006. The ICRC has repaired the water station and built a new water tank (750 cubic meter) supplying 70,000 people. In this same area six soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) were killed recently when their vehicle was hit by an explosive device.

The newly functional water station has changed peoples' lives as Fadi el Ahmad, a young farmer, who used to have to carry big buckets of water, explains; "Everyday, we have a great water consumption. Water is really the most important thing in our lives as we own a lot of animals and fields. There all have great needs for water and we must provide them with sufficient water”.

In the Bekaa Valley further north, the ICRC has also repaired water stations that, although not hit by the bombing, are old and in need of maintenance. One of them, Chamssine water station, provides water to 100,000 people in the valley. The ICRC dug two additional wells to pump up ground and replaced some spare parts. Chamssine water station is now in working order but problems remain: frequent power cuts mean that people can often not pump up water to fill up the tanks on the roofs of their houses.

As mayor Hassan Dib Saleh of Majdel Achjar town in the Beekaa Valley, repeats in Arabic: "Ma fi kahraba, ma fi mayy" meaning 'No electricity, no water'. The shortages only further increase tension in an area where the government is finding it difficult to maintain basic services.


Technical details

11/07/07 14:00-14:10 UTC Eurovision 07/061705 version #1

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Date: 11/07/07 timing: 14:00-14:10 UTC WF
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ICRC - Lebanon- one year later
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