Note the military in civvies mentioned (CP photo attached).....
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Canadians safe after dramatic rescue in violent southern city
Les Perraux and Alex Panetta, Canadian Press, 24 Jul 06
http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/060724/n0724133A.html
BEIRUT (CP) - Canadian soldiers made a perilous journey into Hezbollah territory Monday to whisk stranded Canadians from the most violent city in the fight in southern Lebanon.
A dozen civilians were outnumbered by about 15 Canadian military personnel, including several in plain clothes, as they rushed onto a ship in Tyre, a southern Lebanon port reduced to ruin by constant Israeli bombardment.
As bombs fell a few hundred metres away, several hundred refugees including the Canadians climbed into life rafts and were ferried to the Princesa Marissa anchored off shore. The ship did not even attempt to dock to stay clear of the blasts.
"It was 13 days of bombing - every day, night and day," Adouy Ali of Montreal told reporters dockside in Cyprus. His pregnant wife and two children were with him.
"That's why we're tired, and the kids are tired too. The sentiment is very angry because everything is against the civilians. And the civilians - all the people dying are civilians -every day."
The rescue also took place under a hail of leaflets dropped by an Israeli plane. Guerrillas answered with a small arms fire.
The high-risk, high-security rescue was a sharp contrast with the sleepy atmosphere at the main Canadian evacuation centre in Beirut on Monday.
There officials decided to throw the doors open to anyone with a Canadian passport who wants to leave to speed up the process in the capital where bombing is sporadic and early panic has disappeared.
Having anchored in both spots, the crew of the Princesa Marissa said urgency was in the air in Tyre compared to laid-back Beirut.
The ship is expected to return to Tyre Wednesday, this time chartered by the Canadian government, to pick up Canadians stranded in the country's south.
Crew members of the Cypriot ship chartered by the European Union could smell the plumes of smoke from bombed-out buildings as Israeli forces pounded a series of targets with a half dozen bombs apiece.
"Here we saw bombs 500 metres away," said Yiannis Ioannou, a cook on the ship who prepared a buffet for the evacuees.
"In Beirut, you see nothing. (In Tyre) you see (bombs) always hitting the same targets. Always six bombs hitting the same place."
Added another crew member: "In Beirut, you dock. In Tyre, you stay somewhere in the middle of the sea."
Ship Capt. Kyriakos Papaevrides said the trip was dangerous but necessary. "Somebody has to go," he said. "Somebody has to help the people. We put ourselves in danger to help the people."
As the ship arrived in Cyprus, security personnel pulled away journalists and Papaevrides scolded his crew members for giving out their names.
Ali said other Canadians still need help. He wonders how people will get to the port.
"There are still Canadians over there," he said. "They can't go out from their village. I know two friends of mine are in Al-Masha'ib. They can't move from there."
While the south is paralyzed demand for rescue has started to fade among Canadians in Beirut.
Foreign Affairs staff have offered safe passage to more than half of the 39,000 Canadian citizens in the country as of Monday, the last day they asked people to wait for the embassy to call.
Only 7,500 have taken up the offer. Canadian Ambassador Louis de Lorimier says the evacuation will continue until every citizen who wants to leave is gone.
"We will be evacuating people all week," de Lorimier said. "Demand is less. No doubt some people have left on their own. Some people have probably decided on their own to stay."
Some 1,187 Canadians were taken from Beirut on Monday, less than half of Sunday's number.
The decision to change the evacuation procedure - offering passage to all passport-holders who turn up instead of just those contacted by the embassy - was explained at a Foreign Affairs background briefing in Ottawa.
"We find we are contacting people who have left. Instead of expending a lot of time and effort to do that, we feel we should send out a message to those who might want to leave," said an official who spoke on condition he not be named.
As for those in the south who wish to leave from Tyre: "Canadian citizens were advised last night that they and their dependents should go directly to the port of Tyre on Wednesday morning, July 26, and not wait for further communication from our embassy in Beirut."
Officials asked the media to help get the word out to Lebanese in Canada who may be in contact with family and friends in Tyre.
As for the security risk of boarding passengers at Tyre, one of the officials said: "Us ensuring the safety of anyone in the south would be very difficult."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper "buoyed spirits" and thanked staff during a visit to the evacuation operations centre on Monday in Ottawa, one official said.
"He told everyone to work hard and keep up the good work," during what has been called the largest evacuation of its kind in Canadian history.
Harper has conceded that Foreign Affairs staff on the ground have been over-stretched and working punishing hours.
As for the risk that terrorists could have hitched a government-paid ride to Canada on false passports, officials at the briefing insisted that documents have been checked in Lebanon with the same vigilance as would be the case for anyone entering Canada.
Officials said it's too early to offer even an estimate of what the evacuation effort has cost so far.
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