BEIRUT: UN special coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said Wednesday residents of the battered northern Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp will return home in early 2011.
“The good news is that very very soon – and I have seen some of the buildings myself – that very soon, early in the new year, we hope to see people begin to return to the camp,” Williams told reporters following a field visit to the camp.
Nahr al-Bared was reduced to rubble and its residents were forced to flee in 2007 during 106 days of clashes between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda inspired Fatah al-Islam militant group.
“It is a great pleasure to visit Nahr al-Bared camp today,” Williams said. “It is my first visit here for some time. I am pleased to see the progress that is under way but I am also very conscious that this progress has not been as sustained and as fast as we would have wished.”
Williams said the camp’s popular committees, whom he met Wednesday, had expressed impatience with the slow pace of reconstruction.
“I know it is not what the Palestinians would have liked to have seen. They would have liked to have seen a much faster pace of development,” said Williams.
He added that a return to the camp will be “a very important watershed.” “Psychologically it will be very important for the spirit of the people, the spirit of the people generally here, not just those fortunate to be in the first phase but others who remain behind and who can see for the very first time that people are going back to homes that they once lived in before the tragedy of 2007,” said Williams.
He added that people returning to their homes will also be important for the UN to show to the donor community what has been done and what still needs to be done. According to Williams, what still needs to be done is “very very substantial.”
He added that people returning to their homes will also be important for the UN to show to the donor community what has been done and what still needs to be done. According to Williams, what still needs to be done is “very very substantial.”
The UN Special Coordinator made an appeal to all donors, “Europeans, North Americans, or Arab, to fulfill the commitments already made and to take the occasion of the return of the people to make new pledges for the future because UNRWA is in need of the full funding for the reestablishment of this camp.”
Williams added that he discussed a number of issues with popular committees. He said the Palestinian community would like to resume trade with its neighbors, and had discussed the “important and difficult” issue of access to the camps. “We must strive to find the right balance between the economic well-being of this community and of the Lebanese community outside, and the necessary security concerns,” he said.
“There are issues that I will also discuss with the Lebanese government in the future weeks, and also discuss in New York in two weeks time both with the UN secretary general and the Security Council,” added Williams. –The Daily Star
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