Libyan turmoil triggers evacuations

with Asian countries facing a “mammoth” task of rescuing more than 150 000 low-paid workers, the biggest groups after Egyptians and Tunisians who are evacuating overland largely under their own steam.
Fears of a full-scale civil war in the North African country prompted countries from Cana-da to China to scramble to charter ferries and planes to secure their citizens’ safety despite poor communication links and growing violence.
The logistical challenges were especially acute for Asian countries with tens of thousands of migrants trapped in Libya.
The majority of Asian expatriates are low-paid contract workers, with 60 000 Bangladeshis, 30 000 Filipinos, 23 000 Thais and 18 000 Indians among those living under the tottering regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Of the 18 000 Indians in Libya, about 3 000 are reported to be in the violence-hit city of Benghazi working in automobile companies and hospitals.
China arranged to evacuate half its 30 000 citizens on four ferries chartered from Greece which were expected to reach Libya by yesterday night.
China’s State Council also decided to deploy chartered civil aircraft, nearby cargo ships and even Chinese fishing vessels “carrying needed living and medical supplies”, the foreign ministry said. Chinese diplomats from the Egyptian embassy have gone to the Egyptian border crossing of Sallum to receive Chinese nationals fleeing Libya. The operation has one demanding focus: ensure the safety of the estimated 30 000 Chinese citizens in the volatile country.
The evacuation reflects the concerns of all Chinese compatriots at home.
Since the eruption of turmoil in Libya on February 16, the safety of the Chinese citizens in Libya is one of their major concerns, especially after thousands of Chinese nationals in Libya were robbed and a dozen of them seriously wounded recently.
On Tuesday, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao ordered all-out efforts to safeguard the lives and property of Chinese nationals in Libya, asking authorities to take timely and effective measures.
Hanoi said it was monitoring conditions for 10 000 Vietnamese, while Nepalese officials were looking at overland routes to Egypt for about 3 000 citizens.
Manila has said it will buy plane tickets for its citizens who wish to flee Libya. Migrante International, a support group for overseas Filipino workers, said Filipinos had been abandoned in workers’ camps in Libya to fend for themselves.
The Thai embassy in Tripoli has contacted employers and advised Thais to be ready for evacuation, possibly using other countries’ ships to ferry them to Malta, the labour ministry in Bangkok said.
Malta was the planned destination of a US-chartered ferry that was due to start picking up American citizens from a port in Tripoli.
Britain was sending charter flights along with food and water to help rescue stranded nationals as London rejected criticism from oil workers stuck in desert camps who claimed it had reacted too slowly.
Oil worker James Coyle told BBC radio he was one of 90 Britons trapped in a desert camp among 300 people, including Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Germans, Austrians and Romanians.
“We’ve asked the British government to come here for days now and they’ve just ignored us,” he said.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain was doing its best to ensure the safe return of its citizens, while renewing his condemnation of the crackdown on the Libyan uprising.
“There will be planes and also the use of ferries and other means to get people out of Libya.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said Ottawa was negotiating landing rights in order to fly more than 300 Canadians from Tripoli to European destinations starting today.
Canada was also working with allies France, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand to secure seats on other flights.
The EU’s executive arm said it would provide “extra evacuation capacity”, including by sea to help bring out an estimated 10 000 stranded Europeans.
Two planes carrying around 500 French nationals arrived in Paris early yesterday.
Returnees spoke of thousands of foreigners awaiting evacuation from Tripoli’s packed airport.
A Russian aircraft landed in Moscow with 118 nationals – the first of more than 500 Russian railroad and oil workers from Libya.
Russia’s emergency ministry said it planned to send a total of four planes to Tripoli and a rescue raft to the port of Ras Lanuf, home to an oil refinery.
Bulgaria used two planes to evacuate more than 200 people, including a sizeable number of Croats, Serbs and Macedonians along with 111 Bulgarians.
Thousands of Libyans celebrated the liberation of the eastern city of Benghazi from the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, who was reported to have sent a plane to bomb them yesterday as he held to power.
The crew bailed out of the aircraft after it took off from the capital Tripoli. It then crash-landed south-west of Benghazi, Libya’s Quryna newspaper cited a military source as saying, averting a fresh tragedy in almost a week of bloodshed.
Tripoli, along with western Libya, is still under Gaddafi’s control and people there said they were too afraid of pro-government militia to go out after Gaddafi threatened violence against protesters in a speech on Tuesday night.
Hundreds of people have been killed since the revolt began around a week ago, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said as world leaders scrambled to evacuate their citizens and disagreed on how to end the turmoil.
Oil prices climbed above $110 a barrel amid fears chaos could spread to other oil-producing nations and choke supplies, which could dash hopes of any quick global economic recovery.
An air force officer, Major Rajib Faytouni, said in Benghazi, the cradle of the revolt, that he had witnessed up to 4 000 mercenaries arrive on Libyan transport planes over three days starting from 14 February, the London Guardian reported.
“That’s why we turned against the government. That and the fact there was an order to use planes to attack the people,” he told the newspaper in Benghazi.
Hossam Ibrahim Sherif, director of the Benghazi health centre, told Reuters about 320 people had been killed in the city.
With much of the oil-producing east said to be under control of the protesters, an empty jail burned in Benghazi and people let off firecrackers and honked their horns to mark the end of days of bloodshed there.
Britain’s Sky News showed footage of anti-aircraft missiles at what it said was an abandoned military base near Tobruk, also in the east.
But in the latest sign of international division over how to deal with Gaddafi, the prime minister of Qatar said he did not want to isolate Libya, where several senior officials have declared their backing for protests that began about a week ago.
Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi and a senior aide to Gaddafi’s influential son Saif were the latest to change sides.
“I resigned from the Gaddafi Foundation on Sunday to express dismay against violence,” Youssef Sawani, executive director of the foundation, said in a text message sent to Reuters.
Gaddafi has deployed troops to the west of the capital to try to stop the revolt that started in the east from spreading. In the east, many soldiers have withdrawn from active service. – Reuters, Xinhua, AFP.