10 Americans Evacuated to Safer Christian East Beirut : Farewell ‘Broke Our Hearts,’ Lebanese Says

BEIRUT —  Ten Americans who had stayed in Muslim West Beirut despite the threat of kidnaping by Islamic extremists today fled to the relative quiet of the capital’s Christian eastern sector under heavy guard.

The Americans, some weeping, bid farewell to friends at a waterfront hotel where they had hidden since the killings last week of three Westerners and were escorted through sniper fire by pro-Libyan militiamen into East Beirut.

Education Minister Salim Hoss said the Lebanese should blame themselves for the evacuation of foreigners.

“We chased away businessmen, teachers, diplomats and foreign journalists. We had no mercy on anyone and in the end we had no mercy even on ourselves,” Hoss told reporters.

‘They Broke Our Hearts’

“They broke our hearts with all this emotional farewell,” said one of the nearly 200 Druze Muslim militiamen who escorted the departing Americans across the Green Line battle zone dividing the war-torn capital.

“Terrible,” said American University of Beirut political science Prof. Philip Grant, 45, of Santa Barbara, Calif., when asked how he felt about leaving West Beirut. The grim-faced Grant said he did not think he would return to the Muslim sector of the capital, where the world-famous university is located.

Thomas Weaver, 75, of Cincinnati, an English language professor at American International College for 23 years, wept when reporters asked him about his feelings. “I am very sad to leave,” he said.

No Plans to Leave

A U.S. Embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the evacuees would stay with friends in East Beirut and there were no immediate plans to fly them out of the country.

Earlier today, two British and three French teachers crossed into East Beirut, which has been safer during Lebanon’s 12-year-old civil war than the anarchy-plagued streets of West Beirut, as rockets and mortars flew overhead.

The Americans evacuated from West Beirut today were five men and five women--most of them teachers at the American University of Beirut and its affiliated school, International College.

Others Evacuated

At least 40 other Westerners, mainly British teachers and long-time West Beirut residents, were evacuated into East Beirut last weekend. Twenty-one of the Britons sailed from Jounieh, 12 miles north of Beirut, to Cyprus on Monday.

The exodus of Westerners from West Beirut was triggered by the killings Thursday of American Peter Kilburn, an American University librarian who was held hostage by Muslim extremists 16 months, and British teachers Philip Padfield and John Leigh Douglas.

A pro-Libyan terror group, the Arab Commando Cells, said it killed the Westerners and dumped their bodies in the mountains east of Beirut to avenge the U.S. bombing of Libya a week ago.

The terror group threatened further attacks against Americans and Britons because of London’s decision to permit U.S. planes to attack Libya from bases in Britain.