Aid diary: The rush for home

Astrid Van Genderen Stort is in Beirut for the UN's refugee agency

Aid agencies are trying to take advantage of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah to deliver humanitarian relief to southern Lebanon.

Astrid Van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, describes the difficulties of getting supplies in.

Click here to see earlier instalments of her diary:

1: Getting aid to Lebanon

2: Aid stuck on the border

MONDAY 14 AUGUST

I wake up at 0700 and put on the TV: heavy shelling back and forth. It is worse than ever.

The final countdown to the ceasefire is starting and at 0800 fighting should stop. It seems impossible. I have breakfast and race out to the office. Still heavy shelling... it seems like a bizarre movie, ceasefire two minutes away.

Traffic jams develop in the headlong rush for home

A miracle, it seems. Both parties stopped more or less around 0800. Just like that.

But what is even more amazing, the people - with or without this cessation of fighting - were already determined to make the ceasefire happen.

By 0810, hundreds of people are on the road, racing back home. We race out with our mobile teams to the main transit roads leading in from northern Lebanon to the south, and the roads where people stream in from Syria.

We bring water, hundreds of plastic sheets (loved by everyone as they can create temporary shelter), blankets, baby powder, and milk. Everybody helps us with the distribution, passers-by, the army.

My colleague calls me and say he counted 1,200 cars pass by in one hour. That is some 6,000 people an hour.

At other spots, enormous traffic jams are building up because of the road destruction and the number of people and trucks heading home.

People saved their last bit of fuel for this return home journey.

We just want to go home

"We just want to go home," they tell us. "I am not sure if my house is still here, but I just want to go home and I will live next to my house if I have to."

A little girl says: "I want to go back to my toys and see my friends again."

We keep on cautioning them to be careful of unexploded items, bombs, projectiles.

People say "yes, yes", but their focus is on the south.

Nothing, not even unexploded ordnance, will stop them from going home.

Later on, a colleague from the de-mining agency tells me that a girl died in Tyre from unexploded objects and that at least 10 people, but probably more, were injured.

Supplies on the move

A joint UN convoy with 24 trucks carrying water, food, sanitary and relief items, that had been stuck in Saida, finally starts moving again.

It reaches Tyre by 1400, six hours later.

We will set up a hub in Tyre and pre-position tents, blankets, mattresses and other relief items there. Our staff in Saida also opened a warehouse and office today and goods will be sent there tomorrow.

More than 100 tonnes of supplies came from Cyprus by boat

And a miracle happens! Our relief supplies which had been stuck at the Syrian border, turn up in Beirut.

We are not even warned, and the trucks with the goods come with a way bill in Arabic which does not even reflect the right items on the trucks. But hey - they arrived and that is good news. How long did it take them? Five, seven days? I lose track of time.

Our teams come back from the field at the end of the day, exhausted, happy but also worried for the people.

It is a total mess, traffic jams, cars heading south, other cars heading north.

I speak to our Syria team and they say 10,000 people have already crossed the four major border crossings.

We have emergency teams at all border crossings helping people, and tomorrow we will help people with transport from Homs and the north as well. We have to make sure though that people can really return and do not end up in a situation of second or third displacement again.

I really wonder what this whole conflict was for. Some estimated 1,200 people killed - some 1,000 in Lebanon, about 160 in Israel. Most of them are civilians. Thousands are wounded. People are still lying under the rubble.

Billions of dollars will be needed for reconstruction. There is work for years to come, many traumatised and distraught people to be taken care of.

TUESDAY 15 AUGUST

I wake up at 0700. Hmm, the ceasefire has held - more or less - for some 23 hours now.

More people returning, thousands on the road again and our mobile teams race out once again to set up temporary way stations along the main road, help the vulnerable and warn the people of mine dangers.

UNHCR AID OPERATION Round-the-clock teams at four border check points with Syria Teams distributing: water, high energy biscuits, rehydration salts, wet towels 10-bus convoy from Damascus to Beirut and Sidon for those without transport Eight-bus convoy from the Syrian city of Homs to Lebanese towns Shuttle bus across the Yabous border near Damascus to waiting taxis, for those on foot UNHCR points set up on major return routes within Lebanon Staff distributing: plastic sheeting, mattresses, water

We are handing out relief items again. People are from everywhere. Today we even see people walking all the way to Saida! People want to go to the still rather dangerous deep south.

People don't know where they are going back to - they're just going. Lots of kids, elderly, women, men taking all they have.

These days are chaotic but in the longer term we will know what most people want, whether it is to return, stay next to their destroyed homes, or stay longer in the centres where they can be directly supported. We have to make sure the vulnerable are assisted.

Another Jordanian air force C-130 plane arrived at 0900 from Amman with family tents, mattresses and a large rub hall (tent), which can be used as a warehouse down in Tyre.

We are putting 5,000 mattresses, 1,000 plastic sheets, 500 kitchen sets on the boat going down to Tyre, if all goes well. We are sending down tents and other relief items to our new warehouse in Saida.

By midday, UNHCR Syria has already counted 8,000 people returning at the border crossings. We are facilitating the transport and there will be some 24 buses this afternoon coming from Homs and Damascus bringing back people who cannot return by themselves.

Some will go to Beirut, some to Tripoli, Saida, some to Baalbek, Hermel. We have also started a shuttle service at one of the border crossings, to help people who have come on foot.

Painful stories

My pregnant national colleague - who had wondered before, while talking to me, whether her child would be born in yet another war - just tells me that a cousin of one of our senior drivers has died. He just heard the news.

More supplies will be needed for the many thousands who are returning

The cousin died before the ceasefire but no-one knew. His wife had lost family as well, two weeks ago, while fleeing the village in southern Lebanon. And the driver and his family had already been displaced from southern Beirut. I hope his house is OK. There will be many painful stories like this one.

We are accelerating the bringing of aid into the country. Two more flights to Beirut are scheduled from Amman on Wednesday.

Four flights with UNHCR supplies are landing today in Larnaca, Cyprus, with seven rub halls (shelters), 1,120 canvas tents from Amman and 1,200 lightweight tents from Dubai. They will come on a ship hopefully straight to Tyre.

The French ship that left Marseille last week with UNHCR supplies, including six-wheel-drive trucks that will be able to traverse even bomb-damaged roads, is expected to dock in Beirut tomorrow.

I need a break! But no time yet.

I do hope the ceasefire lasts. The political speeches I hear and read still sound full of anger.