Citing Threats, Red Cross Pulls Out of Lebanon : 30 Swiss Leave, Ending 13-Year Relief Effort

Swiss Red Cross workers who have spent 13 years trying to ease suffering in Lebanon’s years of factional fighting quit the country Tuesday because of “serious threats” against them.

The sudden evacuation was the first such step taken in the 125-year history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The move leaves the Lebanese with no international relief agency to ease the traumas of the conflict that has plagued the country since the outbreak of civil war in 1975.

The Red Cross said it is ready to resume its activities as soon as the threats are unequivocally withdrawn.

About 30 Red Cross workers bade an emotional farewell to Lebanese friends as they boarded a ferry from the Christian-controlled port of Juniyah to Larnaca, Cyprus, at 9 p.m. They are due to fly on to Switzerland.

With Wives, Children

Some of the evacuees were accompanied by their wives and children.

“They looked very sad and depressed. A few of them cried as they embraced Lebanese colleagues and friends,” one witness said.

The Christian Lebanese Forces militia, which controls the port, tightened security and escorted the Swiss nationals to the ferry.

In Lebanon, the Red Cross provided medical aid to civilians trapped in fighting and operated five rehabilitation centers, as well as 13 mobile clinics near front-line battle zones.

Red Cross delegates have braved gunfire, bullets and bombs to bring food and medicine to victims of Lebanon’s many conflicts, visiting prisoners of war, facilitating prisoner exchanges and providing help for displaced people.

In a statement issued at its headquarters in Geneva earlier, the Red Cross said it had decided to suspend operations in Lebanon because of serious threats against its staff, whose lives were believed in acute danger.

“The ICRC therefore finds itself compelled to suspend its entire humanitarian operation in Lebanon and to repatriate all its expatriate staff immediately,” the statement said.

Red Cross officials would not disclose the nature and source of the threats.

The evacuation came despite the release four days ago of Peter Winkler, a Red Cross worker kidnaped in southern Lebanon on Nov. 17 by gunmen demanding the release of Hussein Mohammed Hariri, a Lebanese awaiting trial in Switzerland.

Hariri, a Shia Muslim, is accused of hijacking an Air Afrique plane last year and killing a French passenger before being overpowered during a refueling stop at Geneva.

Lebanese and Palestinian security sources told Reuters news agency that Winkler was kidnaped by gunmen loyal to the Palestinian guerrilla group known as Fatah Revolutionary Council, led by Abu Nidal, and later handed over to Shia radicals.

In Geneva, spokeswoman Marjolaine Martin said the threats were received just as most of the delegates who remained in Lebanon were meeting in Beirut to consider how to resume full-scale operations, curtailed during Winkler’s detention.

Martin said it was the first time that threats had forced the organization to pull out of a country completely.

The statement said the Red Cross accepted the risks inherent in situations of conflict. “It cannot, however, tolerate that its delegates should be subject to a threat that negates the very essence of its humanitarian mission.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross is one of a few agencies that kept a foreign staff in West Beirut--where many of the 16 foreigners missing in Lebanon are believed held--after an exodus of Westerners following the killing of an American and two British hostages in 1986.