Indian UN vet treats animal victims of Lebanon war

KHIAM/LEBANON: Amal al-Nimr flips a goat on its back in her muddy farmyard in south Lebanon to show the Indian vet how the shrapnel wound in its leg is healing.   

Lieutenant-Colonel Parasanali Bapu, the only veterinary surgeon serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), applies iodine to the stricken goat, another casualty of Israel's recent war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas. When Nimr complains her animals have grown skinny since the conflict, Bapu supplies deworming medicine.    

"Because of the stress of the war, the worm load in the stomach increases. Whatever the animals eat, the worms also eat," the vet explains.   

Even before the war, Bapu's free treatment and medicine were in huge demand among the poor farmers and shepherds in these remote southern pastures, near Lebanon's border with Israel and Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.   

"We have seen a lot of death and destruction," he says, estimating that about 60 percent of the animal population was wiped out during the 34-day conflict that ended on Aug. 14.    

"People didn't know the war would go on so long. They left their animals and nobody was able to look after them," he says, striding through farmyards in a smartly ironed uniform, oblivious to the manure splashing onto his polished boots.   

"Some died in the rubble, some fell prey to wild animals, some died due to starvation. Those that survived were emaciated. Suddenly after the war they started diarrhoea and all the gastro-intestinal diseases," the 43-year-old vet adds.