PARIS, France (AP) -- European nations lined up ferries, buses and airplanes to evacuate thousands of their citizens from Lebanon, increasingly under siege from Israeli attacks.
France, which has historic ties to Lebanon and 17,000 citizens residing there, announced plans Saturday to ferry French nationals to Cyprus where Air France flights would be waiting to bring them to Paris.
The voluntary evacuations will begin Sunday. In addition to French residents, up to 6,000 other French citizens were estimated to be in Lebanon visiting.
"We want to take all the necessary measures for the security of our citizens," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said at the end of a crisis meeting Saturday morning. The government would evaluate the situation in Lebanon "hour by hour" and adapt measures if needed, he said. He did not raise the possibility of mandatory evacuations.
So far, no country is known to have ordered all of its citizens out of Lebanon.
A convoy of 410 Italians and others, mainly from the EU, packed up and fled on Saturday, traveling by land to Latakia, Syria. They were boarding military flights to Rome, some going first to Cyprus, the head of the Italian Foreign Ministry's crisis unit, Elisabetta Belloni, said. More than 1,000 Italians remain in Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes struck Lebanon's transport routes and infrastructure for a fourth day on Saturday in response to the capture Wednesday of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas who crossed the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Two Romanian lawmakers and their families also were evacuated to Syria on Saturday, cutting short a vacation. Nicolae Bara told private news television Realitatea TV that the group of 13 people were then going on to Turkey.
Another 160 Romanians requested to leave Lebanon, Romanian Ambassador Aurel Calin told Realitatea and the embassy in Beirut was looking for bus transport to Syria.
Germany, meanwhile, urged an estimated 1,100 German citizens in Lebanon to stay put but avoid unnecessary travel and stay away from potential Israeli targets such as airports and harbors.
Diplomats in Berlin were monitoring the situation closely, preparing for all possible scenarios, the Foreign Ministry said without elaborating.
(con't)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/15/lebanon.europeans.ap/index.html
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