Teenager’s dream trip turned into a nightmare
by LILLIAN SALEH

The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
July 17, 2006 Monday
State Edition

ANNETTE Mazmanians was excited to be on her first overseas trip alone
now the 15-year-old is pleading to come home.

A dancer with the Sydney Armenian Dance Company, the Quakers Hills
teenager was delighted when her parents Karl and Nora gave her
permission to attend the "trip of a lifetime".

But that trip has turned into a nightmare for the St Gregory’s Armenian
student, who with 44 other young performers and their 36 supervisors,
is trapped in a Beirut hotel.

"We’ve been on family holidays together before but this is the first
time Annette has been overseas by herself," Mr Mazmanians yesterday
told The Daily Telegraph.

"This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her and she is with
all her friends, so we agreed she could go."

The couple have been in daily telephone contact with their daughter
as she seeks refuge in her tenth-floor hotel room.

"She’s holding up okay and thankfully they are in the Christian part
of Beirut which isn’t being targeted but she is telling us she can
see smoke and fire from her hotel room."

"All she says is that she wants to come home. They … were getting
ready to head to the airport when word came through it had been
bombed."

The innocent suffer most: P13