By removing the cluster bomblets that were blocking access to agriculture and infrastructure, MAG has improved the economic potential of a community in southern Lebanon.
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Mahmoud Sharaf Eldine, May 2009. |
When the fighting in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israeli forces was over, Mahmoud Sharaf Eldine and his family returned to Kfar Tebnite to find their home damaged and cluster submunitions everywhere.
Like the rest of the town, which is located about 10 kilometres southeast of the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, they had abandoned the area as the conflict intensified.
They called the Lebanese Armed Forces, and teams from the army and MAG arrived in the days following, to remove and destroy the little bombs that lay on the roadway and gardens.
Last September and October MAG returned to Kfar Tebnite, supported by the UN Human Security Trust Fund, to clear more than 26,000 square metres of land, destroying six M77 cluster submunitions and five other items of unexploded ordnance.
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The Sharaf Eldine house and the Kfar Tebnite community water tower. [Photos: MAG Lebanon] |
MAG recently revisited Sharaf Eldine and found that a second floor is being built onto the house for his son’s growing young family. With the fields now free from danger, he hopes the area will continue to recover.
“All countries in the world want peace,” he said. “We want our country to develop, to become like Europe.”
MAG’s work also benefitted the rest of the town’s 12,000 residents, who relied on the nearby water tower for their clean water.
The red concrete structure had been only lightly damaged during the war but, because cluster submunitions were still in the surrounding grass and rocks, workers could not freely access it for maintenance or repair until MAG made the land safe.
Your donation to MAG helps us to move into current and former conflict zones so that communities who have suffered from remnants of conflict can continue to rebuild their lives and secure their livelihoods.
Images from MAG's programme in Lebanon following the 2006 war which left the south of the country littered with unexploded munitions:
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. Photos: JB Russell / MAG.
Links:
- MAG Lebanon - find out more about MAG's work in the country
- Donate to MAG online - more than 90 per cent of MAG's income is spent directly on clearance programmes
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23 June 09
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