‘We’re panicking’ – British son of woman in Beirut awaiting her return to the UK

A “panicked” son waiting for his mother to catch a flight out of Lebanon said he has been “infuriated” by the UK Government’s response to help evacuate non-British family members.

Philip, 28, a British citizen who did not wish to share his or his mother’s surnames, said his Lebanese mother Rita, 55, arrived in Ajaltoun, Keserwan, north of Beirut, in August to visit her uncle who has cancer.

She has a commercial flight booked out of the country on Wednesday, but her son fears a dangerous journey to the airport after the Israeli military began a “limited, localised” military ground offensive in the southern part of the country.

“We’re panicking about how she’s going to get to the airport,” he told the PA news agency.

“Instead of being in some form of evacuation protected by the British, she instead has to get a taxi, go through the southern suburb of Beirut which is arguably one of the most dangerous places on Earth, and get to the airport all on her own.

“God forbid something happens like a bombing at the airport – it’s just very, very stressful.”

Rita arrived in the UK in 2021 on a spouse visa after spending time in Lebanon taking care of her sick father, following her husband’s arrival in 2014 and her son’s in 2013.

Usually living in Surbiton, in Kingston upon Thames, she has a biometric residence permit but as she is not a British citizen she is not eligible for the UK Government’s evacuation plan, which has seen a flight chartered to get Britons out of Beirut on Wednesday.

As a British citizen, Philip said the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told him she would have been eligible as a family member being evacuated alongside him if he had been in the country with her – but as she is there alone she is not.

He was relieved to have already booked a flight for her with Middle East Airlines, but condemned the level of support offered by the UK Government for British nationals hoping to help their immediate family members.

He said: “What’s really infuriating is when the British Government come out with a statement saying you need to leave Lebanon immediately and the first question that comes to mind is ‘how exactly?’”

“We pre-booked a flight for her out of the country on October 2, that was her original flight back that she was always going to take to come to the UK, so we were one of the lucky ones that had a return ticket to London that’s valid.

“If I had not booked that flight for October 2 months and months ago, she would be genuinely stuck in Lebanon.”

Philip said the family has become increasingly worried about the situation in Lebanon over recent weeks, starting with the pager explosions targeting Hezbollah members which killed dozens of people on September 17.

“It’s been a massive crescendo, this whole war,” he said.

“It started off with a couple of missiles here, a couple of missiles there, then it became assassinations, then it became bombings of entire military complexes and then it became assassinations of very high-level people in Hezbollah.

“It’s been on an increasing rhythm of deterioration.”

When PA contacted the FCDO for comment, it replied with information on the flight chartered by the UK to help British nationals leave Lebanon which is scheduled to leave Beirut on Wednesday – and said it does not “routinely comment on flight details and individual consular cases”.

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Published: 01/10/2024 by Radio NewsHub