Q&A: Lebanon Relief Efforts

As fears of a humanitarian crisis grew on Thursday, Mercy Corps' Cassandra Nelson visited a town in the Shouf mountains, where Mercy Corps is planning to distribute food, bedding and other supplies to families who fled their heavily damaged neighborhoods in south Beirut and are now holed up in homes, schools and other municipal buildings.

Today was your first day on the ground. Where did you go?
I went to Kaifoun, about an hour or so southeast of Beirut. It's normally about a 20-minute trip, but our drivers took the long, safe route. It's where we'll be doing a distribution of food on Friday.

What's the situation there?
Basically, it's one of the communities swelling with internally displaced people. The local authorities told me that every family has taken on at least three additional families. So what used to be a household of eight is now a household of 40. And essentially a town of 5,000 people is now trying to accommodate 40,000.

So you see people using every inch of space, literally spilling out onto the streets from houses, mosques, schools, churches. They're living 30 people to a room in some places. People just have cots lying out the street.

Did you visit any of these municipal buildings? How are people living?
In one school I visited I went into a room that maybe accommodates 20 pupils at desks, there are twice as many people eating, sleeping, cooking, doing everything in that space. There are few foam mattresses and blankets, and some people brought a little gas cooker and whatever clothes and maybe a little bit of food they could take with them.

Where are these people coming from?
They're mainly from Burj Al Barajne, a Beirut suburb where we've helped establish an Internet-equipped youth leadership center. The people I talked to left because of the shelling. Maybe they stayed the first couple of days, but when they realized it wasn't going to end soon, or their neighbor's house got bombed, they left.

What are their needs?
They need shelter, they need something to sleep on, they need food to eat and water to drink and water and sanitation so people can flush toilets, et cetera.

How are they coping?
They're not coping very well. But the real question is how are they going to survive going forward? We heard the mayor say this town is out of food in 10 days. There might be sufficient food, for now, in Beirut and other areas, but elsewhere the food is not available, especially to the most vulnerable populations. I think there are shortages and it will become more and more apparent. So food is definitely an issue.

Help us deliver humanitarian aid to those most affected by the violence and respond quickly to emerging needs by donating Lebanon Crisis Fund.