According to the refugee agency of the United Nations, almost 180,000 people, mostly foreign workers, have left Libya so far. They have fled to the neighboring countries, Egypt and Tunisia.
There has been a mass chaos on the Tunisian border for several days as hundreds of thousands gathered at the border to flee from Libya. A great many number of people were even lost in the no-man’s area between the borders of the two countries.
As per recent estimates of the UN refugee agency, almost 83,000 people have crossed into Egypt while almost 95,000 have fled to Tunisia.
An urgent appeal has been made by the high Commissioner of the United Nations stating that the neighboring countries should assist in the mass evacuation of the people who want to get out of Libya in the wake of the ensuing violence from the ruling party in Libya. The refugee agency noted that most of the foreign workers don’t have the money and travelling documents in this crisis situation.
Most of these foreign workers are from Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Mali, Ghana and Sudan, who came to Libya for work and for better prospects of their lives, after the largest quantity of crude oil in the whole of African continent was found in Libya.
A majority of these people fleeing Libya belong to Egypt for whom the caretaker government of Egypt has specifically sent paid flights on Thursday which will take the stranded Egyptians from coastal Djerba and safely bring them to Cairo.
By Thursday afternoon, 2,700 Egyptian people have been taken out from Libya via 17 flights and 13 more flights are being expected which will take away 2080 more Egyptian people.