Turkish ships evacuate 2,000 nationals from Lebanon

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey began evacuating around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon via two military ships in the Port of Beirut late Wednesday, as Israel is conducting daily airstrikes on Lebanese Hezbollah.

Zehra Cibbin, a 46-year-old mother from southeastern Turkey’s Mardin, boarded one of the vessels with two of her children, The Associated Press (AP) reported, adding it was the first non-government media on the ships to cover the evacuation.

“It’s indescribable. They bombed the street below our house. From that moment on, it was over for me, I said I didn’t want to stay in Beirut anymore,” AP quoted Cibbin as saying.

Cibbin, who lived with her Lebanese husband in Beirut, decided to leave out of fear, AP reported, but she does not know what will happen when she arrives in Turkey.

The TCG Bayraktar and TCG Bayraktar were part of a six-ship convoy that set sail from Mersin earlier in the day.

Turkey’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Baris Ulusoy said that two navy ships were prepared to evacuate the Turkish citizens and deliver 300 tons of humanitarian aid.

"Today, two ships belonging to the Turkish Navy are arriving at the Port of Beirut. These ships, with a capacity to carry 2,000 people, will pick up our citizens and take them to the Port of Mersin," state media Anadolu Agency quoted him as saying.

Ulusoy added there are about 13,000 to 14,000 Turkish citizens in Lebanon, and the 2,000 are those who had applied with the embassy to be evacuated.

On Sunday, Turkey’s embassy in Beirut posted on X that Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had a telephone call with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati the previous day to discuss “humanitarian aid” activities to support the country.

Israel has targeted sites in Lebanon since its war with Hamas started a year ago, but it has recently escalated its ground operations and airstrikes. Since the conflict began, 1.2 million people, nearly a quarter of the Lebanese population, have been displaced, Mikati said last week.

In recent press conferences, Lebanon’s transportation minister Ali Hamieh repeatedly has stressed the importance of the country’s airport, seaports, and border crossings being spared during the conflict to prevent exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.

Lebanon is also hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, in addition to 13,715 refugees of other nationalities, according to the UNHCR.

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