UN warns southern Lebanese against rushing home

GENEVA, Sep 5 (Reuters) The United Nations refugee agency today warned southern Lebanese against rushing home to areas without water and electricity and where unexploded Israeli ordnance remained a danger.

Many of those who had returned following last month's ceasefire between Israeli and Hizbollah forces would end up spending the winter in other villages, said Ron Redmond, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

''A substantial number of the Lebanese who rushed home immediately after the ceasefire found they could not use their houses and remain displaced,'' he said.

''The UNHCR is not advising further returns to this most southerly area of Lebanon,'' he added.

UNHCR estimates there are thousands of Lebanese who have not been able to return to their homes after the month-long war, which ended in a ceasefire on 14 this month.

According to the charity Caritas, in Beirut alone there are 35,000 people who have not been able to go home and have lost their source of income, the agency added.

REUTERS MS KN1913