Telecoms Charity Flies to Lebanon

A crew of volunteers from Telecoms Sans Frontieres will head out to Lebanon this morning to offer emergency communications services to refugees and aid workers. The crew will be landing in Larnaca, Cyprus to reach Beirut as soon as possible. TSF will be carrying 7 satellite lines, 3 satellite data transmitters, 1 visio conference station and IT equipment such as laptops, fax, printers, scanners and photocopiers.

When security conditions are met, TSF will deploy mobile Telecoms Centres with Wifi Internet access available to the humanitarian community in Southern Lebanon. In parallel, TSF will implement humanitarian phoning operations for displaced populations.

According to a recent bulletin, more than 900 civilians have been killed and over 3,000 injured. One million Lebanese have been displaced since the offensive begun on July 12th (one quarter of the total population of the country).

TSF offers victims of disasters or conflicts the possibility to break out of their isolation. Often, refugee camps only have a very basic telecommunications infrastructure and the population is totally cut off from the rest of the world. Being able to telephone is vital in these situations: to find dispersed family members, to contact relatives and thus maybe obtain immediate personalised help, or simply to say " I'm still alive ".

You can read more at their website - www.tsfi.org - and make a donation online to their general emergency works if you wish."

Posted to the site on 7th August 2006