Rockets Halt Convoy at Beirut Camp : Amal Fire Halts Convoy Headed to Beirut Camp

Machine-gun fire and rockets rained down today on a U.N. emergency convoy as it tried to move food into a besieged Beirut refugee camp facing starvation, forcing the mission to be abandoned.

The shooting erupted when two trucks of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency and four ambulances from the Iranian Embassy reached the western entrance of Borj el Brajne, cut off since October by Shia Muslim Amal gunmen.

A convoy team member said one rescue worker, an Iranian in an ambulance, was killed. Most of the rescue workers were Lebanese Shias working with an Iranian medical team.

The UNWRA convoy, its two trucks each loaded with 16 tons of flour and milk, was headed by the agency’s Swedish director, Per Hallqvist. He and other U.N. workers abandoned the trucks, left useless with their tires shot out.

Militiaman Shot at Wheels

Witnesses said the rocket and machine-gun fire flared after an Amal fighter shot at the wheels of the UNRWA truck to try to stop it from getting through to the 30,000 refugees in the camp, many reported eating rats, cats, dogs and mules to ward off starvation.

“Some of the contents of the truck were unloaded into the ambulances of the Iranian team. When the ambulances tried to enter, all hell broke loose and shooting and rockets rained down on the convoy,” one witness said.

An Amal spokesman charged that the shooting at the convoy came from inside the camp.

An UNRWA spokeswoman said: “The operation failed. We were escorted to the camp by Amal and Syrian military observers, but when we reached there, shooting started, our trucks were shot at and we left.

“We will try again but I don’t know when.”

Supplies Given to Amal

She said two other truckloads of supplies, carrying the same amount of goods, were given to Amal before the relief trucks headed to Borj el Brajne.

Amid echoing explosions, Amal militiamen went on alert behind huge sand barricades spread along the main highway leading into the settlement.

Other militiamen stood on trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns pointed toward the shantytown.

Shooting from inside the camp wounded one Amal militiaman who was deployed along the highway as reporters and civilians dived for cover.

Shelling of the Shia southern suburbs and Borj el Brajne earlier today killed eight people, including five Palestinian children, militia sources said.

Strategic Village Regained

East of Sidon, scores of heavily armed Amal fighters reoccupied Maghdousheh, a strategic village they lost in heavy fighting against Palestinian guerrillas in November.

The fighters hoisted an Amal flag and put up a large picture of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei in the battered Christian village east of Sidon.

Amal had said it would not lift its siege of Palestinian refugee camps until its men were allowed to resume full control of the village.