Woken by the loud sounds and shocks of bombing one night in July 2006, Rami Ossayran and his mother, Ilham, were forced to flee their hometown of Qoseybeh. When the 34-day war ended, they returned to find that their house and their livelihood had been destroyed.
MAG’s Battle Area Clearance teams are a familiar presence in the town of Qoseybeh, 12 kilometres southwest of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. MAG first arrived on site immediately after the 2006 war to undertake emergency clearance of roads and public areas, which were littered with cluster submunitions and other unexploded ordnance, in order to allow residents to return to their homes.
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| Twenty-nine year old Rami Ossayran, with his fiancée Khadija and his mother Ilham, on their family citrus farm |
In February 2007, MAG was tasked by the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre to work at a site called CBU-240, a large area within which were located a number of residences, as well as orange and lemon groves, and which contained at least six cluster bomb strikes.
A narrow lane runs through the middle of the site. It was once shaded by a line of cypress trees, but these were among the hundreds of trees that were destroyed by multiple bomb and artillery strikes, and the lane is now exposed and barren.
On either side of the lane are large craters. Two are large and deep enough to easily swallow a car, while a third crater could contain a tour bus. The surrounding fruit trees were all destroyed, and have since been cut down. Along the road are the remnants of a barn, and a freshly reconstructed house is rising from the rubble, which is all that is left of an older house.
The Ossayran family lived in the house and farmed on the site. Rami Ossayran and his mother, Ilham, describe how they were sleeping in the family home one night in July of 2006 when they were startled from their sleep by the loud sounds and shocks of bombing. They turned on the radio and heard that South Lebanon was under fire. They fled to a nearby town, which also came under attack, and spent the remainder of the 34-day war in the city of Sidon.
When they returned in the days following the ceasefire, they found that their house and their livelihood had been destroyed. Rami had been fixing the house, which had been in the family for almost 100 years, to be a home for himself and his fiancée, Khadija, once they were married. Now it, and his plans to grow oranges, pomegranates and lemons for income, lay in ruins.
- Rami Ossayran, Qoseybeh village |
Rami and Ilham explain that MAG was on site immediately after the war, and cleared the road of unexploded cluster bombs so that they could visit their property. After dealing with emergency clearance of roads and public infrastructure, MAG prioritised clearance around living areas, before moving onto areas affecting livelihoods.
This prioritisation allowed Rami to immediately begin reconstruction on his house, which was completed in December of 2007. Meanwhile, the MAG team is now working in the orange tree groves, which are thick with undergrowth hiding unexploded cluster bombs. Through December 2007, MAG has removed and destroyed more than 100 cluster submunitions from the CBU 240 site.
When the clearance is completed, Rami and his family expect to once again be able to sell their produce in the ancient souk in Sidon. He laughs, and says “We hope for the best and trust in the future – and hope there is no war!” He praises the quality of the work and cooperation with MAG, and also thanks the donors, without whom “MAG wouldn’t be able to work here.”
David Harbin, MAG Lebanon Programme Officer
Links:
» More on MAG's work in Lebanon
» Lebanon photo gallery: Tackling the legacy of conflict
» Mine Action Coordination Centre homepage
29 February 08
MAG’s work in Lebanon is funded and supported by: DFID (UK Department for International Development); ECHO (European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department); Government of the Federal Republic of Germany; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA); US Department of State, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement; United Nations Office for Project Services
