Christians Flee E. Beirut Amid Shaky Truce

Lines of cars and pickups piled high with mattresses, clothes and household goods snaked out of Christian East Beirut on Saturday during a cease-fire in the battle for control of the Christian enclave.

Sniper fire crackled, despite the cease-fire, but there were no reports of new casualties.

Police said civil defense teams evacuated 12 dead and 26 wounded during the night after the fighting between Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun’s troops and the Lebanese Forces militia subsided.

That raised the overall casualty toll since the battles began Jan. 30 to at least 766 killed and 2,087 wounded.

The cease-fire took effect at 9 p.m. Friday after Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir threatened to excommunicate the fighters and their leaders if they did not stop shooting.

Both Aoun and his rival, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, are Maronites, the Christian sect that has dominated Lebanon since independence from France in 1943.

Sfeir, speaking at a peace rally in Bkirki north of Beirut, lashed out at the antagonists and declared: “A Christian worships God. He loves, has mercy on and helps his relative. He does not kill him, humiliate him or make him homeless.”

The battle for dominance in the 310-square-mile Christian enclave has driven one-fifth of the area’s 1 million inhabitants from their homes to relative safety elsewhere.

A woman carrying a suitcase in one hand and a plastic bag of food in the other shepherded three children across Beirut’s dividing Green Line into the Muslim sector. “They’ve made us homeless. Only God is left for us now,” she cried out.