Villagers conquer Khiam

Alia Ibrahim 
Daily Star staff 
Hundreds of villagers stormed the notorious Khiam detention center on Tuesday, tearing down its
gates and barbed-wire barricades to free 144 detainees after their SLA militia jailors had
abandoned the complex. 
Up to 500 villagers, backed by resistance fighters firing in the air and chanting "Allahu Akbar"
marched on Khiam in the early afternoon as delegates from the International Committee of the
Red Cross were trying to find militia leaders to negotiate an orderly release of the detainees. 
Five inmates ­ including Suleiman Ramadan, who with 15 years in detention was the centers
longest-serving prisoners ­ were taken to the Marjayoun hospital suffering from physical and
emotional stress. 
Detainees from the dwindling zone went straight to their homes, while others had to wait until
a passage was secured for them. Hundreds of families waited at the crossroads between Nabatieh,
Kfar Tibnit, and Arnoun as rumors spread that the detainees would be accompanied through the
Kfar Tibnit passage. 
Long hours of waiting did not discourage the hundreds of people who crowded the streets, and as
many waited for family members, others anticipated the liberation of their villages so they could
finally go home. 
Others were simply there to share in the joy and to greet the 
homecoming heroes. 
"Tonight we’re going to sleep 
in our village," said Mariam Ajami from Arnoun, as she held her 18-month-old daughter. 
"Twenty-two years ago, we had to leave our village," she explained. "Our house is destroyed, but
that doesn’t matter any more. What matters is that we’re coming back. 
"I won’t be going anywhere before I see my brother," said Ferial Yehia, who along with her mother
and infant daughter, was waiting for her brother Adnan, 21. "I wouldn’t miss this. I’ve been
waiting for too long." 
Mohammad Safa, the head of the Follow-Up Committee for the Support of Lebanese Detainees in
Israeli Prisons, said that the evacuation of the Khiam prison was a triumph, but that the
victory would be incomplete until all detainees in Israeli prisons had been released. 
Earlier, he had encouraged villagers to invade the prison. 
- As The Daily Star went to press, most of the former detainees, escorted by
representatives of the International Committee for the Red Cross, were on their way to Beirut’s
southern suburbs to be congratulated by Hizbullah officials and supporters. 
 

DS 24/05/00