VietNamNet Bridge – A total of 10,330 Vietnamese workers in Libya were evacuated, including 7,000 that brought home safely by March 6. By the midweek, all remaining people will be carried home by air.

In the past two days, the last groups of Vietnamese workers in Libya, totaling around 1,000, were evacuated to Libya’s neighboring countries and are waiting for repatriation, the Department for Management of Overseas Labor said.

One of the groups included 68 workers who left Sabah, Libya, on March 5 and arrived at the border with Tunisia on the morning of March 6. They experienced a long journey during which they were examined at 15 check points set up by both the Libyan government and the anti-government insurgents. This group will leave for Vietnam on March 8, said the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

Another group that included 71 workers and five representatives of Vietnam’s labor exporters were on the way from Libya to Ras Jdir, Tunisia, on March 6. They are expected to arrive this morning, March 7.

Vietnam Airlines said it will continue to send a Boeing 777 plane to Djerba, Tunisia, at 8 a.m. March 8 to take home the last Vietnamese workers.

This flight, expected to land at the Tan Son Nhat Airport at 10:25 a.m. March 9, will be the tenth and the last for the campaign to repatriate Vietnamese workers from Libya.

Meanwhile, 292 workers evacuated to Algeria from Libya will be taken home by a commercial flight a few days later, said Nguyen Thanh Hoa, deputy minister of labor.

By 17 p.m. of March 6, the total number of Vietnamese workers repatriated to Vietnam amounted to 6,816, and by the morning of March 7, the number will exceed 7,000, the Department for Management of Overseas Labor said.

It is scheduled that by March 10, the campaign to save 10,000 Vietnamese workers in Libya will be completed, with the assistance of Vietnam Airlines, the International Organization for Migration and other international organizations.

Timelines of the rescue of Vietnamese workers from Libya

January 15: Benghazi city in Libya was moved by the demonstration of thousands of people against the government led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi since 1969. There were around 10,400 Vietnamese working at construction sites in Libya at that time.

February 18: Dozens of demonstrators in Benghazi, the second largest state in Libya, were shot dead. Vietnam stopped sending workers to Libya. Labor exporting firms were told to keep an eye on the situation in Libya and to ask Vietnamese workers to avoid public sites.

February 24: Many countries began to evacuate their citizens from Libya. Vietnamese Ambassador to Libya Dao Duy Tien said that some Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya by land, air and water by their Korean, Brazilian, Turkish employers.

The Vietnamese government established a steering board to assist Vietnamese in the Middle East and North Africa. The board, led by Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, is in charge of evacuating Vietnamese from Libya and bringing them home.

February 25: 2,000 Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya to Egypt, Turkey, Malta and Tunisia. Around 2,500 were on the way to the border of Libya.

Vietnam asked the IOM to assist Vietnamese workers in Libya.

February 26: Around 4,600 Vietnamese workers were brought to the neighboring countries of Libya and nearly 4,000 others were on the way to the border.

The same day, the first aircraft of Vietnam Airlines left Hanoi with 8 tons of cooking, clothes and medicine to Egypt to help Vietnamese citizens.

March 1: The aircraft returned to Hanoi with 318 Vietnamese workers. The same days, flights of other airlines also carried Vietnamese workers from Libya to Hanoi, raising the total number to 1,450.

March 2: More than 6,000 Vietnamese left Libya to third countries. Around 2,800 arrived home safely while 3,000 were on their way to the border. Around 300 were still trapped in Libya.

March 3: 8,250 Vietnamese were evacuated from Libya to other countries, 2,740 of them returned home safely. The remaining workers were in five neighboring countries of Libya or on the way home by waterway. In addition, there were nearly 300 others trapped in Libya.

March 6: All 10,334 Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya, 7,000 of them returned home.

The last people will arrive home on March 10.

Source: Tuoi Tre/VNE