A Word from the US Embassy in Lebanon

I received this message from the US Embassy earlier today:

As stated in the current Travel Warning for Lebanon, the Department of State continues to strongly urge that Americans defer travel to Lebanon and that American citizens in Lebanon consider carefully the risks of remaining.

In a crisis situation, American citizens are responsible for arranging commercial or private means of transportation to depart Lebanon. American citizens wishing to depart Lebanon are urged to do so, keeping in mind that options are currently limited.

Major roads to Beirut International Airport remain blocked, and there is only limited airline service at present. Violent clashes in several areas in and around Beirut have been reported, and it is still not known when the airport road will re-open and normal air transport services will resume. The main road to Damascus remains blocked.

American citizens wanting to depart may wish to consider chartering private watercraft to Cyprus. Until such time as travel services out of Lebanon become available, the U.S. Embassy urges American citizens to ensure they have an adequate supply of food, water and other essential items and to remain safely inside their homes. Americans are encouraged to review their travel plans following resumption of normal air services.

The U.S. Embassy remains open for business; however, Nonimmigrant Visa processing has been suspended except under special circumstances. American Citizen Services and Immigrant Visa processing are functioning normally. American citizens are urged to avoid the airport road and any other areas where demonstrators are gathered, and to monitor the local media for information regarding the security situation.

In other words, if you're American and want to leave: get a boat or start swimming. If you're Lebanese and you want to get out and stay with your relatives in America: too bad.

A better plan, which a few American visitors I know have done, is to take a taxi toward the Syrian border near Tripoli and then travel by land down to Damascus, from where you can fly home. Having said that, there are reports that fighting has broken out in Tripoli. Moreover, those same Americans informed us that while Syria is processing travel visas much more quickly than it usually does (it can take an American up to twelve hours to get a visa at the Syrian border), there is a flood of Syrians at the border trying to get back into Syria.

As for B and me, we feel better for now about staying. There is a good chance that classes will be held next week (although, according to one woman in one of my classes, most students have gone to their family homes in the mountains or elsewhere outside Beirut). And besides, I think we are safer here on campus than traveling, particularly since Hezbollah and its allies seem to have taken the battles to other parts of the country now. That said, we have received word from a friend of ours in a neighborhood in southern Beirut that fighting is still going on there (as media reports confirm).