Cyprus takes in more Lebanon evacuees

Residents search for belongings amid the rubble of their home after an Israeli air raid hit the nearby Fatima al-Zahra building which contains a library, a school and a mosque linked to Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

About 14 vessels were expected to dock at the Cypriot ports of Larnaca and Limassol on Sunday and Monday, part of a days-old mass evacuation already involving more than 25,000 people from dozens of countries that shows no signs of slowing.

More than 1,000 weary Canadians walked ashore in the sticky Cypriot summer night. Women tried to pacify screaming infants as they queued to enter a cramped reception centre.

"We are really tired, it has been a very long trip ... Many more people could not leave, the boats were simply too crowded," said student Cynthia Eid.

Elie Coriaty, 51, an engineering consultant from Montreal, said Canada had been slower to act than some other countries.

"The Canadians were behind for the first few days... but now it is picking up... They are making up for lost time," he said.

Two ships carrying nearly 2,000 Americans docked in Limassol, adding to the nearly 8,000 the Pentagon said had already been evacuated from Lebanon via Cyprus and Turkey.

Many Americans were still stuck at a makeshift camp in a fairground in the Cypriot capital Nicosia awaiting chartered planes to fly them home.

By contrast, an estimated 5,000 British evacuees passing through the British air force base at Akrotiri in southern Cyprus were swiftly processed and flown home.