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Thursday 24 February 2011
China to evacuate 30,000 from Libya
China will attempt to evacuate more than 30,000 of its nationals trapped in violence-torn Libya, with the first chartered jet taking off for the North African country yesterday.
Shi Jiangtao and Ed Zhang in Beijing 24 February 2011
China will attempt to evacuate more than 30,000 of its nationals trapped in violence-torn Libya, with the first chartered jet taking off for the North African country yesterday.
The Air China Airbus A330 left Beijing’s Capital International Airport carrying officials from various ministries and aid such as food and medicine, Xinhua said.
The plane will stop over in Athens before heading to the Libyan capital Tripoli if cleared to land there.
The flight was originally scheduled to leave Beijing yesterday morning but held up due to a delay in getting permission to land from the government of besieged Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, state television reported.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Tripoli said Chinese nationals, mostly construction workers on railway, telecommunications and oil projects, and companies operating in Libya had been attacked by gun-wielding looters since the uprising against Gaddafi erupted a week ago. At least 15 people were seriously injured and taken to hospital.
Forces loyal to Gaddafi tightened their grip on the capital, Tripoli, yesterday as the opposition cemented its hold on the country’s east and took over cities in the west.
The State Council set up an emergency taskforce on Tuesday to co-ordinate the evacuation of Chinese nationals, as well as those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Evacuating so many people - in what will be one of the largest government-led evacuations in the history of the People’s Republic - is by no means an easy task.
“Chinese nationals are expected to be evacuated by all possible means - through air, land and sea and as the first step, most of them will be sent to a neighbouring country, such as Malta, Egypt and Greece,” said Professor Zhang Xiaodong , an expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
How to inform and gather all the Chinese scattered around Libya could be the most challenging part of the operation, as telephone lines and the internet were cut and most roads were blocked either by Libyan security forces or protesters, Zhang said.
Eighty-three engineers and workers from China Building Technique Group were evacuated from a Libyan town on the border with Egypt on Tuesday night, the Foreign Ministry said. They were received at the border by staff from the Chinese embassy in Egypt.
The ministry said the embassy had hired nearly 100 buses to be on standby at the border to transport Chinese citizens.
About 2,900 Chinese would be evacuated from Libya to Tunisia, some of whom started arriving last night, Xinhua said. They would be driven by bus to the Tunisian resort of Girba.
Four Greek ferries, chartered by the Chinese embassies in Greece and Malta, were on their way to waters off Libya. Four cargo ships were also on their way.
The ferries, which can carry up to 1,500 people, were expected to reach the port of Benghazi, Libya’s second city, late last night. The Chinese were expected to sail to the Mediterranean island of Crete this morning and then be repatriated by air.
The ferries, which will be joined by additional vessels, are expected to make several trips to Libya and back.
Warming ties between China and Greece, which has sought closer links with China in recent years to bolster its flagging economy, had apparently helped Beijing’s evacuation operation, analysts said. Xinhua said a second plane, which could also carry about 230 passengers, was expected to take off early this morning.
Apart from Air China, Hainan Airlines and China Southern Airlines are expected to be involved in the evacuation operation.
“We have been told to be on standby as we have yet to work out an evacuation route due to chaos in Libya and especially in its major airports,” an official at Hainan Airlines said. “It will be a tough task to evacuate so many people from a far away country which has no direct flights to China.”
More than 6,000 workers from Hubei were working in Libya on various infrastructure projects such as railways, hydropower and mining.
Liu Wensheng, chief economist of Hong Kong-listed China Communications Construction, vowed to make the safety of more than 1,000 mainland workers in Libya the company’s priority. “We are monitoring and considering the safety of our workers in Libya,” he said.
State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi said Beijing would try its utmost to help Taiwanese evacuate from Libya once they sought help from the Chinese embassy.
The Chinese workers are among 100,000 migrants from Asian nations being prepared for evacuation.
The majority of expatriates are contract workers, with 60,000 Bangladeshis, 30,000 Filipinos, 23,000 Thais and 18,000 Indians among those living in the country.
Philippine Vice-President Jejomar Binay, whose country relies heavily on remittances from around nine million overseas workers, was due to fly to the Middle East tomorrow to review emergency plans for Filipinos in the region. Manila has said it will buy plane tickets for as many of its 30,000 citizens in Libya who wish to flee.
Migrante International, a support group for overseas Filipino workers, said Filipinos had been abandoned in workers’ camps in Libya to fend for themselves.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said an Indian passenger ship that could carry 1,000 people was in the Red Sea and was on standby, while Bangladesh said it was also looking at evacuation plans.
Additional reporting by Toh Han Shih, Laura Zhou, Agence France-Presse
2 comments:
China to evacuate 30,000 from Libya
Beijing launches air, sea and land rescue bid
Shi Jiangtao and Ed Zhang in Beijing
24 February 2011
China will attempt to evacuate more than 30,000 of its nationals trapped in violence-torn Libya, with the first chartered jet taking off for the North African country yesterday.
The Air China Airbus A330 left Beijing’s Capital International Airport carrying officials from various ministries and aid such as food and medicine, Xinhua said.
The plane will stop over in Athens before heading to the Libyan capital Tripoli if cleared to land there.
The flight was originally scheduled to leave Beijing yesterday morning but held up due to a delay in getting permission to land from the government of besieged Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, state television reported.
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Tripoli said Chinese nationals, mostly construction workers on railway, telecommunications and oil projects, and companies operating in Libya had been attacked by gun-wielding looters since the uprising against Gaddafi erupted a week ago. At least 15 people were seriously injured and taken to hospital.
Forces loyal to Gaddafi tightened their grip on the capital, Tripoli, yesterday as the opposition cemented its hold on the country’s east and took over cities in the west.
The State Council set up an emergency taskforce on Tuesday to co-ordinate the evacuation of Chinese nationals, as well as those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Evacuating so many people - in what will be one of the largest government-led evacuations in the history of the People’s Republic - is by no means an easy task.
“Chinese nationals are expected to be evacuated by all possible means - through air, land and sea and as the first step, most of them will be sent to a neighbouring country, such as Malta, Egypt and Greece,” said Professor Zhang Xiaodong , an expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
How to inform and gather all the Chinese scattered around Libya could be the most challenging part of the operation, as telephone lines and the internet were cut and most roads were blocked either by Libyan security forces or protesters, Zhang said.
Eighty-three engineers and workers from China Building Technique Group were evacuated from a Libyan town on the border with Egypt on Tuesday night, the Foreign Ministry said. They were received at the border by staff from the Chinese embassy in Egypt.
The ministry said the embassy had hired nearly 100 buses to be on standby at the border to transport Chinese citizens.
About 2,900 Chinese would be evacuated from Libya to Tunisia, some of whom started arriving last night, Xinhua said. They would be driven by bus to the Tunisian resort of Girba.
Four Greek ferries, chartered by the Chinese embassies in Greece and Malta, were on their way to waters off Libya. Four cargo ships were also on their way.
The ferries, which can carry up to 1,500 people, were expected to reach the port of Benghazi, Libya’s second city, late last night. The Chinese were expected to sail to the Mediterranean island of Crete this morning and then be repatriated by air.
The ferries, which will be joined by additional vessels, are expected to make several trips to Libya and back.
Warming ties between China and Greece, which has sought closer links with China in recent years to bolster its flagging economy, had apparently helped Beijing’s evacuation operation, analysts said. Xinhua said a second plane, which could also carry about 230 passengers, was expected to take off early this morning.
Apart from Air China, Hainan Airlines and China Southern Airlines are expected to be involved in the evacuation operation.
“We have been told to be on standby as we have yet to work out an evacuation route due to chaos in Libya and especially in its major airports,” an official at Hainan Airlines said. “It will be a tough task to evacuate so many people from a far away country which has no direct flights to China.”
More than 6,000 workers from Hubei were working in Libya on various infrastructure projects such as railways, hydropower and mining.
Liu Wensheng, chief economist of Hong Kong-listed China Communications Construction, vowed to make the safety of more than 1,000 mainland workers in Libya the company’s priority. “We are monitoring and considering the safety of our workers in Libya,” he said.
State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi said Beijing would try its utmost to help Taiwanese evacuate from Libya once they sought help from the Chinese embassy.
The Chinese workers are among 100,000 migrants from Asian nations being prepared for evacuation.
The majority of expatriates are contract workers, with 60,000 Bangladeshis, 30,000 Filipinos, 23,000 Thais and 18,000 Indians among those living in the country.
Philippine Vice-President Jejomar Binay, whose country relies heavily on remittances from around nine million overseas workers, was due to fly to the Middle East tomorrow to review emergency plans for Filipinos in the region. Manila has said it will buy plane tickets for as many of its 30,000 citizens in Libya who wish to flee.
Migrante International, a support group for overseas Filipino workers, said Filipinos had been abandoned in workers’ camps in Libya to fend for themselves.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said an Indian passenger ship that could carry 1,000 people was in the Red Sea and was on standby, while Bangladesh said it was also looking at evacuation plans.
Additional reporting by Toh Han Shih, Laura Zhou, Agence France-Presse
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