Ottawa/CMEDIA: Reportedly months after warning there is no guarantee Ottawa can evacuate Canadians if the situation deteriorates further, nearly 45,000 of them are still in Lebanon. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly reportedly said.
Expressing concern that attacks like exploding pagers would only make the situation worse, she told reporters Friday in Toronto that Canadians who even think of going to Lebanon should not go.
Since last October’s brutal Hamas attack on Israel prompting Israel to bomb Gaza, Hezbollah militants have been shooting rockets at northern Israel causing communities near the border to evacuate, and Israel to strike both civilian and Hezbollah infrastructure.
Joly started urging Canadians by late last October to leave Lebanon, saying that the military was assessing how to conduct a possible evacuation of citizens if needed.
Not being clear on how many people may need to be evacuated, the government is stating the number of individuals who had proactively registered with Global Affairs Canada. That stood at around 21,400 people in late July, with Ottawa cautioning many have not registered.
At that point, Joly had warned that the situation on the ground may not help them if things get worse.
On Friday, she specified how many people could end up trapped.
“We know that we have around 45,000 Canadians in Lebanon…We need to make sure that message (to leave) is clear…followed by Canadians…also, that were not well prepared.” she said and added that suffering in all parts of the region needs to end.
Noting escalating violence in Lebanon including the deadly attacks widely attributed to Israel targeted Hezbollah militants, which involved exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, Joly said.
“We are gravely concerned about the reports that civilians, including children, have been killed or injured,” the Global Affairs Canada department wrote, following the pager explosions. “Canada is calling on all sides to avoid further escalations of violence and to protect civilians.”
