Security Council members call for cease-fire in Lebanon; UN troops to stay in Golan Heights.

Security Council members call for cease-fire in Lebanon

Security Council members on 24 April again urged all parties to the conflict in Lebanon "to respond favourably" to cease-fire appeals. They also reiterated full support for action by a ministerial committee of the League of Arab States "to put an end to the loss of human lives, to alleviate the sufferings of the Lebanese people and to achieve an effective ceasefire indispensable for a settlement of the Lebanese crisis".

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar was asked to make all possible efforts to that end, in collaroration with the ministerial committee.

Clovis Maksoud, Observer for the Leage of Arab States, said at a 20 April New York press conference that the situation in Lebanon had reached "catastrophic dimensions". The League would send observers to monitors a cease-fire that it is trying to arrange in Lebanon, as a first step to establishing a government of national reconciliation, he said.

(The commander of the Arab League observer group and a special envoy arrived in Beirut on 10 May. They were to be followed by 320 observers from Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Sudan and Tunisia.).

In Geneva, on 1 May, after talks with Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Chairman of the Arab League committee, the Secretary-General stated that the UN was ready to assist the League in its efforst.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar appealed on 9 May to all those involved in the fighting to adhere to the cease-fire and reaffirmed his support for the Arab League's efforts to find a solution.

On 21 April, Mr. Perez de Cuellar had urgently appealed for international humanitarian assistance to Lebanon. Beirut needed immediately $5 million for fuel to keep electrical power, water and hospital services functioning, he said. A UN mission had estimated that $87 million was needed to help 800,000 persons throughout the country.

Because of recent heavy bombardments, he said, hundreds of thousand of people were "desperately short of water, electricity, fuel, food and medicines."