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'Human shield' vehicles stranded by cash shortage

By Ananova

Two double-decker buses and a London taxi used to transport human shield volunteers to Iraq are stranded in Beirut with no cash to ship them home.

The owner of the buses is now appealling for financial help to raise the £3,100 required to get his vehicles home,

Anti-war campaigner Joe Letts, 52, who helped to drive around 45 Britons and 50 other European volunteers out to Baghdad more than five weeks ago, says he will have to keep his vehicles in storage in Lebanon for the time being.

Mr Letts said: "This whole project has all cost much more than anticipated. Some money that was promised didn't emerge and we have encountered other problems.

"I'm quite sure when people understand what happened and what the situation is then we will get some financial help.

"I am just going to leave the buses here as I desperately want to go home to see my wife who I haven't seen for five and a half weeks."

Mr Letts, who lives in Dorset UK, and the two other drivers with him in Beirut, were confronted with another problem on when his vehicles were forbidden from crossing the border from Syria because of a diesel vehicle ban in Lebanon.

The human shield mission has attracted ridicule from the media in recent days amid reports of petty infighting and volunteers abandoning their protest, citing concerns for their safety.

But Mr Letts said that at least 200 Western volunteers remained in Iraq and that their morale was "high".

An official at the British Embassy in Beirut says they had received "numerous" reports of bus sightings, but that "no one has been in touch with us as yet.

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