Ottawa winds down daily Lebanon evacuations
Last Updated: Friday, July 28, 2006 | 5:19 PM ET
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Canada will end daily sea evacuations from Lebanon on Saturday, but foreign affairs officials say they'll continue to help any Canadians who want to leave.
About 100 Canadians left the port of Beirut on Friday on a ship bound for Larnaca, Cyprus. Two more ships are expected to leave later in the day.
Foreign Affairs says Canadian-chartered ships will stop leaving the port of Beirut on a daily basis on Saturday.
As of Thursday, 27 ships carrying 11,712 Canadians had left Beirut or the southern Lebanese port of Tyre. They were bound for Cyprus or Mersin, Turkey.
The number of evacuees has steadily declined this past week, with the exception of Thursday, which saw four ships take 1,700 Canadians from the Beirut port.
Officials said the large influx that day may have been a reaction to the upcoming end of daily ship service, or because of the failure to declare a ceasefire following the international Mideast summit in Rome this week.
About 40,000 Canadians have registered with the Canadian Embassy in Lebanon.
Embassy officials have recently put a call out to groups of Canadians believed to be in Lebanon's mountainous Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border, said CBC reporter Susan Ormiston.
The Canadians there have been told they should try to make their way south to the port of Beirut if they want to leave, said Ormiston.
Fewer evacuees arriving in Turkey
Yves Brodeur, Canada's ambassador to Turkey, said Canadian officials in Mersin are in the process of scaling back operations there because of steadily decreasing numbers of evacuees.
"We don't have the numbers of people to justify a large-scale operation," said Brodeur who said the situation could still change.
"I cannot predict what is going to happen over the next couple of days," he said.
If there is a new rush of evacuees, Brodeur says officials will "take appropriate measures and respond."
While the regular daily operation is winding down, Canadian officials say they will continue to help remaining Canadians get out by other means.
Lina Elsaadi, who along with her children left Lebanon for Damascus one week ago, managed to get a flight home to Edmonton on Saturday. Speaking to CBC News on Friday, she said her ordeal is almost over.
"I'm going back home, my husband's waiting, my children can continue their life," she said.
"My heart is with the people displaced in their own town with nothing to go back to."
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