Comparing various evacuation efforts:
Beijing
As tens of thousands of migrant workers from a multitude of countries languish at Libya’s border with Tunisia, trapped in a humanitarian crisis trying to flee mounting violence,
Chinese TV viewers are being treated to a very different sight.
Wednesday morning they were shown crowds of laughing and cheering Chinese evacuees aboard a Greek ferry, escorted by a Chinese frigate, safely en route to the Mediterranean island of Crete.
The Chinese government has chartered seven ships, sent 15 civilian flights a day and deployed military planes to bring 32,000 Chinese workers out of Libya over the past week. The unprecedented but apparently well-organized evacuation has highlighted China's growing role in the region, and despite crises spreading across North Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has shown no sign of wanting to lessen that role.
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* BANGLADESH: The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said it had helped evacuate 400 Bangladeshis via Turkey on Tuesday. More than 50,000 Bangladeshis work for Libyan and international firms in Libya, Foreign Ministry officials said.
BOSNIA: So far half of the 1,500 Bosnians living in Libya have been evacuated, the Foreign Ministry said, and Bosnian authorities will organise another flight to evacuate workers from Sirte.
* BRITAIN: HMS York arrived at Benghazi to pick up any remaining British nationals wishing to leave. A Rapid Deployment Team will be on board to provide consular assistance, the Foreign Office said. There are up to 150 British nationals left in Libya.
*
CANADA: Canada has moved additional aircraft into the region that can reach Canadians working in more remote areas.
-- However Libyan authorities on Tuesday denied a Canadian air force aircraft permission to enter Libyan air space and land in Tripoli to pick up oil workers. The C-130 Hercules plane had left from Malta and has now turned back, airport sources said
(eao: Pathetic! Our response is about as good as Bangladesh. Most Canadians that have escaped Libya so far were rescued by Canadian allies, not the Canadian government. It looks like Canada is still in the planning stages to get the rest out. Our frigate should be there in a few more weeks)
CHINA: According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, China has evacuated around 32,000 nationals from Libya.
-- A Chinese navy frigate, Xuzhou, reached waters off Libya on Tuesday to offer support and protection for ships evacuating Chinese nationals.
GERMANY: German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday 46 Germans remained in Libya, 36 of which are in Tripoli. More than 600 Germans have already left Libya.
* INDIA: A quarter of about 18,000 Indians, most of them employed in the oil, construction and health sectors in Libya, have been brought out after the government chartered cruise ships, and through special flights of the state carrier Air India. NIGERIA: The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said it planned to evacuate 2,000 of its nationals. Nigeria said it had flown 1,035 of its citizens back to Abuja, on two chartered flights on Sunday, with about 1,000 more to follow in the coming days.
-- Muhammad Sani-Sidi, head of NEMA, told Reuters it was a voluntary evacuation and the 2,000 were Nigerians who had registered a desire to leave. He estimated there were 10,000 Nigerians in Libya.
* PHILIPPINES: Up to 9,231 Filipinos have left Libya, of which 859 have arrived in Manila. About 26,000 Filipinos work mostly in the medical and oil and gas sectors in Libya.
* TURKEY: The prime minister's office said in a statement on Wednesday that a total 21,505 people have now been evacuated from Libya to Turkey on 67 planes, five ships, one frigate and via transport organised by private companies. Of that total, 2,982 people were not Turkish citizens. The total number of evacuees will reach 22,554 once a ferry boat with 1,049 passengers, including 888 foreigners, arrives in Istanbul from Tripoli, the statement said.
VIETNAM: Vietnam has evacuated about 1,300 of its citizens from Libya out of 10,482 living and working there.
OTHERS:
* ALONG LIBYA'S BORDERS:
-- A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said some 170,000 people have fled Libya since the start of the uprising.
-- British officials said 85,000 mainly Egyptian migrant workers were massed across the Tunisian border, with a further 40,000 waiting on the Libyan side.
-- Britain said it would charter three commercial passenger aircraft to fly 6,000 people back to Egypt over the next three days. The first two planes will leave Britain on Wednesday for Djerba in Tunisia.
-- France will send military transport planes and a naval landing ship to evacuate 5,000 refugees within the next week, its Foreign Ministry said.
-- French Armed Forces spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said a naval amphibious landing vessel should arrive in the Mediterranean within two days, as part of the operation. (Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Compiled and edited by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
FACTBOX-Libya evacuations by country | News by Country | Reuters
