Displaced begin to go home following Lebanon ceasefire

Thousands forced to flee head back to heavily bombed south

- RANA NAJJAR, BEL TREW and CHRIS STEVENSON

Thousands of people forced to leave their homes in war-torn southern Lebanon have started to return in the wake of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and furniture streamed through the heavily bombed southern port city of Tyre, heading south towards the areas hundreds of thousands of people had been forced to flee from during nearly 14 months of clashes. Traffic jams could be seen around Beirut and along the roads heading out of the city, as people began their journeys as soon as the ceasefire came into effect at 4am local time.

Hussein, 45, told The Independent that he and his wife Hiam, 41, had packed all their belongings at the shelter they had been staying in in the Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, and started the normally two-hour-long journey to an area south of Tyre. “At 6 o’clock I was turning the car [around] and went straight to Tyre Harfa. I thought I would be the first one there, but I was surprised that the traffic was stifling on the southern road, just like it was when we left for Beirut,” he said.

Hussein said he had been working as a painter in and around Tyre, but that the work had dried up about seven months ago, and he had fled with his mother, three children and wife as the fighting in the city intensified. “Our house is badly damaged, but I will return even if I have to set up a tent in front of the house,” he said. “The important thing is that the war is over. We are not afraid, we are the owners of the land, but our material losses are great, and we have many victims and wounded among our extended family, neighbours and villagers.”