Medicines and orthopedic-sanitary material were donated by the Italian contingent of Unifil to the psychiatric hospital of Burj Ash Shamali, in Southern Lebanon.
The health facility, born as a center for the elderly, has become even more important since 2019 after the closure of a mental health center in nearby Tire, as it welcomes about 80 guests aged between 22 and 60, guaranteeing them treatment paths and specialized rehabilitation.
The donation was made by the soldiers of Italbatt, the maneuvering unit in the West sector of Unifil, which for about three months has been operating in the "Land of the cedars" to ensure day after day the monitoring and control of the cessation of hostilities, but also support the local population through civil-military cooperation projects in the field of health care in all twenty-four municipalities present in their area of responsibility.
The director of the center, Dr. Moustafa Harb, in thanking the Italian military for the noble gesture, recalled that “the period of crisis that Lebanon is going through makes the work of doctors even more difficult. Initiatives like this cannot but be welcome, because they meet the needs of all those who fight for the protection of psychiatric patients, often abandoned to themselves and to whom, instead, it is necessary to restore dignity ”.
Colonel Carlo Di Pinto, commander of Italbatt, intervened at the ceremony for the delivery of the material together with the specialists of civil-military cooperation, highlighted that the support to the civilian population - and in this case to the weakest and most exposed sections of the population - is fundamental importance in the context of the Unifil mission, having the dual purpose of facilitating the natural development of civil organizations and of building lasting peace in a land that has suffered the drama of war.
