An aircraft carrying 130 Lebanese trade union leaders landed in sanctions-bound Iraq Tuesday, the second solidarity flight from Beirut to Baghdad.
The chairman of Lebanon's Arab Forum think-tank, Maan Bachur, said the group had to charter a Ukranian plane having met "a lot of difficulties" in trying to find a Lebanese aircraft.
The unionists dubbed the flight "From Qana to Al-Amria" in memory of the hundreds of people who died in the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon in 1986 and the American bombing of a shelter in Baghdad in February 1991 during the Gulf war.
The delegation said their presence bore witness to the "suffering of the Lebanese and Iraqi people from US and Israeli aggression."
A first flight from Lebanon arrived October 13 as most Arab countries joined a steady flow of aid flights trying to end the decade-old air embargo on Iraq following the reopening of Saddam International airport in August.
Paris and Moscow say the embargo does not cover private non-commercial flights. Washington and London insist all flights must be approved by a UN sanctions committee – BAGHDAD (AFP)
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