JPost Reporter Ventures into South Lebanon

The small group of Ghanaian soldiers manning UNIFIL Position 6-52, to the west of the village of Maroun a-Ras, less than a kilometer from the border, hasn't left its base in the last two weeks.

"Those are the orders of our superior officers," explains one of them who presents himself as commander of the post, but refuses to give his name.

Even the deaths of four UNTSO members on Tuesday night in an IAF bombardment, at a base not so far away, wasn't communicated to them from headquarters. That, too, they learned from TV.

"The problem is not UNIFIL," says the soldier at the gate. "It's the mandate we have from the UN. That is what decides our job..., if UNIFIL's mandate was changed and the force increased, it would be more efficient."

The Ghanaian soldiers weren't even aware of the breach in the fence they are supposed to monitor, by mandate of the United Nations.