In Lebanon, the rainy season brings many benefits, amongst them is hope and the prospect of a good harvest for the farmers. However, flooding is a recurring problem for local communities and heavy machinery is required to remedy this issue.

As part of UNIFIL's commitment in the South and its support to the local communities, the Civil Military Coordination (CIMIC) team, responded to a request from the Mayor of Kfar Kila, to clean and widen one of the main water channels near the Blue Line, where rain water tends to flood adjacent fields and prevent farmers from using their land.

The task was given to UNIFIL's Spanish Battalion and the plan was to dig and widen a channel of 300 meters in length, 6 meters wide and 2 meters deep, in order to let the rain water drain through it and divert it away from the surrounding fields.

On 16 September 2013 the Spanish Battalion's Engineering Unit started the works, with an 8:00 to 17:00 schedule, Mondays to Fridays, reserving Saturdays for vehicle maintenance. After one month of hard work the project is almost done. If you visit the area you will be able to see a nicely completed water drainage channel from quite a distance away.

Capt Martin-Consuegra from the Engineering unit noted that they "had to accelerate the work for two reasons, first to finish before the rainfall, and secondly before the hand-over for the new Spanish battalion early in November"

Capt Consuecra seemed to be very proud of his team's work and credited Sergeant Mensayas for his hard work of completing such large project in a relatively short period of time.

The main benefit of this project is that it will help farmers to grow their crops earlier than usual on both sides of the channel, because they won't have to wait for the fields to dry out. In addition some of the water will be used for irrigation purposes.

Such projects demonstrate how UNIFIL continues to lend a hand to local communities whenever possible.

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Article: Ali Bazzi
Video Editor: Mohamad Hamze
Video Camera: Mohamad Hamze
Photo: Pascual Gorriz Marcos

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