Brazil launches rescue operation to evacuate 1,400 citizens from Lebanon
Brazilian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that it has launched a major operation to rescue about 1,400 Brazilians from strife-torn Lebanon.

Some 400 of the 1,400 Brazilians who have asked evacuation assistance from Lebanon were to be evacuated on Friday from Beirut to southern Turkish city of Adana.

Authorities were also examining the possibility of using buses to evacuate the 1.000 Brazilians stranded in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, said the Foreign Ministry.

The Brazilian government has already brought home more than 100 Brazilians in an Air Force plane. And at least seven Brazilians have been killed in the Israeli bombardments which began after the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas.

There are 70,000 Brazilian citizens in Lebanon, showed statistics released by Brazil's consulate to Lebanon.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Saturday that he was shocked by the present situation in Lebanon. In his speech at a summit of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) in Argentina, he stressed that the evacuation of the citizens was a priority for the government at the moment.