Americans find haven in Cyprus after Lebanon ordeal

LARNACA, Cyprus, July 20 (Reuters) Hundreds of Americans and other foreign nationals fleeing Israeli air strikes that have pummelled Lebanon for eight days found safe haven in Cyprus today.

Three ships docked in the port of Larnaca late yesterday -- a US-chartered cruise liner carrying 1,044 people, mostly Americans, a United Nations ship with an unknown number aboard and a French ship with 320 on board.

The US ambassador to Cyprus said the operation to bring American citizens out of the stricken city of Beirut was just beginning, with thousands more expected over the coming days.

''Over the next couple of days you are going to be seeing a very large influx,'' Ambassador Ronald Schlicher told reporters at the quayside. ''Maybe five, maybe six, maybe seven (thousand), I think we just have to wait and see.'' As helicopters clattered overhead and forklift trucks unloaded baggage, a woman with a bandaged arm was taken off the Orient Queen cruise liner on a stretcher and put straight into an ambulance, while an elderly man was disembarked in a wheelchair.

Nabil El-Hage, 47, a professor of management science at Harvard Business School, said: ''I feel really sad, I really do. I have two countries. I have my country of birth and my adopted country and I love both. I hate to see Lebanon destroyed''.

Eight-year-old Ali Makki, from Michigan, said he had been frightened by bombs dropped near his building. ''The thing I was scared the most about was when they shot the bombs on our building.'' Kamil Saber, who lives in New Jersey, gave his reasons for leaving: ''It wasn't the fear it was just the restriction of movement. We'll be back. We'll all be back next year''.

The Americans, the biggest group of US citizens to have been evacuated from Lebanon so far, were taken on buses to a facility prepared for them at the Nicosia fairground. Many were expected to board two charter flights to Baltimore on Thursday.

SOUND OF FIGHTING The evacuees began their 75-km voyage from Beirut to Cyprus with the sound of fighting ringing in their ears. Two explosions from an Israeli air strike echoed over the city as families clustered at the assembly point.

''It's very bad, very sad, I can't believe what's happening,'' said a tearful Lubna Jaber, an Australian who had come to visit relatives in Lebanon. She was waiting in downtown Beirut with about 350 compatriots hoping to board a ferry to Turkey.

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