Jurdi and Leventhal had been summoned by Harvard University to meet representatives of a company called International SOS at the hotel. Like other Harvard students in Lebanon, Jurdi and Leventhal were whisked out of the country—well before the U.S. State Department began its own evacuations. In the early days of the conflict, private contractors evacuated hundreds of people, most of them associated with America’s wealthier corporations and universities.
Private contractors say they can evacuate groups of people more quickly than governments, albeit in much smaller numbers. “We don’t have the political restrictions that governments do,” says David Cameron, the vice president of security services for International SOS. Cameron points out that the U.S. government had to be officially invited into Lebanon before it could begin its evacuations. “In situations like these, it takes a great deal of deterioration before a government says, ‘OK, come in and evacuate’.”
For the two Harvard students, hooking up with International SOS meant a quick escape. On July 15, only three days after Hizbullah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers, and a full 24 hours before the U.S. government would begin its own evacuations, a Harvard staff member telephoned Jurdi and Leventhal saying they should get to Le Royal as soon as possible. From the hotel—and following their wild drive into Beirut—SOS took over. A caravan of eight busses carried the two students (and about 60 others, including corporate members and affiliates of Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Boston College) comfortably to the Syrian border. An SOS employee posted at the customs checkpoint facilitated their crossing, and they continued on to Damascus airport where a chartered flight to Cyprus awaited them.
As of July 25, SOS had evacuated 290 people from Lebanon. Most of these were affiliated with member organizations, whether corporations, nonprofits or universities—members pay a yearly fee, much like an insurance premium, which varies based on the size of the organization. Medex, another private firm that contracts evacuation and health services, has also been active in Lebanon. Jay Rausenberger, the company’s director of marketing, says Medex has helped to evacuate 40 to 50 clients through a variety of means including ground and air transport. These are tiny numbers compared to the 11,700 American citizens the U.S. government reports it has evacuated, but the speed of private services makes them valuable to client organizations. “There are situations where our members may be at risk but the State Department has not yet issued a travel warning,” says Rausenberger.
Even after that warning has come, government evacuations can sometimes make for a frustrating experience. Jay Saxon, an American studying Arabic at the Lebanese American University, didn’t have a plush trip out of Lebanon. Though the State Department told Saxon that he had been placed on a “high priority” list for evacuation, he shipped out days later, on a cramped and unsanitary Norwegian freighter. “There were about three bathrooms on the ship for [according to one deckhand] 1,170 people,” says Saxon. “There were flies everywhere and you couldn’t flush toilet paper. There was a two-foot pile of used toilet paper sitting there.”
Saxon says he is “very thankful” to the Norwegian government for the ride—though he describes it, overall, as a “miserable” experience. But he has specific complaints about the U.S. State Department and military. Saxon says he and his American friends were forced to leave all their belongings—save one 30-pound bag—in Lebanon, while nationals of other countries were allowed to bring several bags apiece. Then, he says, the military-style packaged meals that had been provided by the U.S. government for its citizens were handed out “willy-nilly” to everyone. “My American friends didn’t eat at all,” Saxon says.
Saxon and other evacuees report that some of their American friends considered refusing evacuation or making a run for the border themselves when they were told they might have to pay the U.S. government for their own passage. Nadia Zahran, a student from Trinity College in Connecticut who evacuated by helicopter, says she was asked to sign a note promising to pay an undisclosed amount. “When I got there, a Marine told me that this would cost almost three grand,” she says. The State Department eventually announced that it would waive those charges, but its early ambivalence may have diminished confidence in its ability to effectively run large-scale evacuations.
After hearing the stories of others, Leventhal says he appreciates the experience provided by SOS. “Compared with the other evacuations that took place, through the State Department and the other embassies, it was much better,” he says. “When we got to Cyprus, nobody was there. Now we’re hearing reports that people are getting stuck there for four days, because the airport doesn’t have the capacity to get that many people out.” Jurdi and Leventhal flew out of Cyprus the day after they arrived. Jurdi is now at home in south Orange County, Calif. Leventhal flew to meet up with family in the south of France. “I’m hoping just to go home and find an Arabic tutor,” he says. “But right now, I’m just relaxing.”
