THE Foreign Office has been branded as “disgusting” by a British-Lebanese woman as she criticised the UK Government’s efforts to help people leave the country.
Nineteen-year-old Lara, who did not give her surname, said some people were struggling to afford to pay for flights out of Lebanon at short notice.
Asked if the Foreign Office was doing enough, she said: “No, it’s disgusting.”
Lara, who had just arrived on a flight from Beirut at Heathrow Airport with her grandmother, said: “People in Lebanon have said goodbye to me in a way they shouldn’t. Like they will never see me again.
“Whenever I hear a bang I think it’s a missile coming towards me.”
Another “panicked” son waiting for his mother to catch a flight out of Lebanon said he has been “infuriated” by the UK Government’s response to help evacuate non-British family members.
Philip, 28, a British citizen who did not wish to share his or his mother’s surnames, said his Lebanese mother Rita, 55, arrived in Ajaltoun, Keserwan, north of Beirut in August to visit her uncle who has cancer.
She has a commercial flight booked out of the country on Wednesday, but her son fears a dangerous journey to the airport after the Israeli military began what they said was a “limited, localised” military ground offensive in the southern part of the country.
“We’re panicking about how she’s going to get to the airport,” he told the PA news agency.
“God forbid something happens like a bombing at the airport – it’s just very, very stressful.”
As a British citizen himself, Philip said the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told him she would have been eligible as a family member being evacuated alongside him if he had been in the country with her – but as she is there alone she is not.
He was relieved to have already booked a flight for her with Middle East Airlines, but condemned the level of support offered by the UK Government for British nationals hoping to help their immediate family members.
He said: “What’s really infuriating is when the British Government come out with a statement saying you need to leave Lebanon immediately and the first question that comes to mind is ‘how exactly?'”
David Lammy warned the situation in Lebanon is “febrile and fragile” as he repeated his call for Britons to leave while they still can.
The Foreign Secretary (below) told reporters in London: “I have warned and cautioned now for months that we have seen in previous crises between Israel and Lebanon the airport close.”
If that happens “we cannot guarantee that we will be able to get people out in speedy fashion”.
Asked about her journey to the airport, Lara said: “It was terrifying, I didn’t know if I was going to make it.
“What’s going on isn’t something people should be quiet about. Why is history repeating itself?”
The Lebanese prime minister says his country is facing “one of its most dangerous phases” and that one million people are displaced after Israeli troops invaded.
A United Nations worker has said the situation in Lebanon is the worst he has seen in the 13 years he has worked there.
The man, who did not want to be named, had just arrived at Heathrow Airport having retired from his job as planned.
He said explosions and shelling have significantly increased over the last few weeks in the city of Tyre where he was working.
“It’s rough, lots of civilian areas have been hit,” he said.
“I’ve not seen this intensity before, it’s bad. Some have moved away from Tyre to Beirut further from the border.”
The Foreign Office has been approached for comment.
