Ingo Radtke, Secretary General of Malteser International, reports from Lebanon:

Monday, November 27, 2006

Bint Jbeil is still a nightmare. A grey hole gapes in the middle of the small town which appears in front of us in a grey valley between two ridges. Bint Jbeil, situated in the utmost south of the Lebanon where the Hezbollah and the Israeli army were waging their fight, is still looking as if its heart was ripped out three months ago.

Below us, in front of the riddled Imam-Hussein Mosque, school children with heavy bags are running past the ruins of which the worst rubble is taken off by now, and curiously observe the camera crews who arrived that very morning. The director of the school talks to the German reporter and describes how the war still is in the mind of the children, that they are still painting pictures from the war. For one week, the German telecast 'Morgenmagazin' will bring such stories to the German viewers, and this morning, it focusses on the work of the Order of Malta. The journalists make a shooting one of the mobile clinics, show pictures of the reopened health centres, and ask question about the cooperation with the Shiites.

Half an hour later, the six metres long van is on top of the ridge at the border with Israel which changed its owner three times in August. From the minaret of the Mosque of Maroun er-Ras, the mobile clinic of the Shiite Imam-Sadr-Foundation and of the Order of Malta gets announced. Only after a short while, a huge group of people gathers in front of the van. A pediatrist examines a crying girl; an orthopaedist prescribes a medicine against back pain that is immediately taken out of the medicine chest by the two pharmacists with head scarves. At some days, the five members of the team treat about 200 patients.

'Aged people are worst affected by the situation', explains Mrs. Balhaz who helped implementing the mobile clinics. 'If the villages were not visited one by one, many of those people would not see a doctor any more.' For together with the houses, many of the previous health centres were destroyed.

A few kilometres further, the doctor of another Malteser team, Dr. Raed el-Alam, complains about the new chaos. His health centre situated immediately at the Israeli border is completely destroyed. Since September, he and his colleagues run an emergency service - in a room in which a one metre wide open bullet hole was only poorly covered with concrete. By now, there are sufficient medical drugs, el-Alam states. However, now it was important to transfer the different temporary clinics into a stable and constant health care system.

The Lebanese Association of the Order of Malta will run these mobile clinics only until there are again permanent facilities in all villages - otherwise, the temporary clinics would ruin the old-established doctors. For about one year, the organisation estimates, the 'mobile doctors' will be necessary.

In the early afternoon, back in Tyrus, we meet with the nurse of the Imam-Sadr-Foundation. On a portrait behind her desk we recognise the Imam, a prestigious religious leader. The Head of the Lebanese Association of the Order of Malta tells us respectfully, how many Christian people had also listened to his sermons before he disappeared in Libya. Thereupon, Mrs Sadr brought the charitable Imam-Sadr-Foundation into being. Her expressive face under the head scarf is switching from happiness to concern. 'For the first time in 25 years of charitable work, people come to us because they have nothing to eat', she describes the situation after the war. Together with the Order of Malta she set up the mobile clinics, in her school she welcomed the children already one month before the official start of the lessons to distract the children's thoughts with games, painting and theatre. Now, the foundation teaches nearly 50 percent more pupils than last year. And Mrs. Sadr has more plans that she wants to realise with the help of the Order of Malta: her ideas include a club for elderly people, centres lending an ear to traumatised children as well as youth centres. help of the Order of Malta: her ideas include a club for elderly people, centres lending an ear to traumatised children as well as youth centres.

The Imam-Sadr-Foundation is an ideal partner for the Order of Malta, also because it is the only Shiite charitable organisation that keeps itself out of politics. 'And what is the political elite doing in these difficult times? They are only arguing', Mrs. Sadr complains. 'I think those persons would also need a little bit of decent education', she says and laughs.

Today, after all, the situation is more relaxed. A delegation of the Hezbollah leadership has gone to see the family of the murdered Christian minister Gemayel to express their sympathy. A sign of good will in a troubled country.

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