Up to 50 Irish citizens stranded in Lebanon

AROUND 50 Irish citizens were still stranded in crisis-hit Lebanon last night, as the Department of Foreign Affairs works out an evacuation plan.

A spokesperson for the department said a bus will collect them in the capital, Beirut. But there is difficulty in planning a convoy route out of the country as Israel drops bombs on roads and bridges and it is not thought they will leave until tomorrow at the earliest.

The department said 25 Irish people were in Beirut and a further 25 are in the south of the country which has seen more than 200 of its civilians killed since Israel started launching air strikes last week.

Almost 100 Irish passport holders were due to arrive back on Irish soil this morning, after fleeing the country.

Yesterday morning, 11 Irish citizens, including a woman who is six months’ pregnant, her two children and some elderly people, arrived in Baldonnel airport in the Government jet.

A further 88 people were due to arrive in Dublin Airport just after seven o’clock this morning on a scheduled Aer Lingus flight from Dubai.

Most of these had travelled from Beirut, across the Syrian border on a 17-hour bus trip on Monday.

They arrived in Damascus on Monday night and travelled from there to Dubai yesterday morning.

Maggie Preston travelled with her two daughters, aged 16 and 17, but her husband stayed behind.

She said she was never more delighted to be an Irish citizen: “It was just terrifying, we could hear the explosions, we could hear the Israeli jets, it was coming closer and closer and no body slept for the past few days. Having the two girls, I just had to go,” she told RTÉ radio before departing for Dublin.

Ronnie McShane from Dublin was in the Lebanon with his wife, and was relieved to get out: “The journey was long and we had lots of hold-ups at the Syrian border with passports and documentation and that kind of thing, but the Irish contingent who was helping us was absolutely brilliant,” he said.

The Irish were among the tens of thousands of foreigners fleeing yesterday, as governments moved to get their citizens to safety by air, sea and land.

As the British destroyer HMS Gloucester docked at Beirut port to start the evacuation of British nationals, the US Embassy tried to calm impatient Americans.

While helicopters flew dozens of US citizens out of the country, a cruise ship steaming toward Beirut to help US citizens looked unlikely to dock before nightfall — delaying large-scale American evacuation by another day.

The US Embassy said everyone who wanted to get out would eventually.

The United Nations also said it was evacuating all nonessential staff along with dependants and families from Beirut.

The United Nations also said it was evacuating all nonessential staff along with dependants and families from Beirut.