Over 2,700 Vietnamese workers in Libya have arrived home safely and 5,300 others have been evacuated to other countries, said the Department for Management of Overseas Labor on the afternoon of March 3.

The department’s vice chief Dao Cong Hai said that around 2,500 workers are now in Turkey, 1,500 in Malta, 1,300 in Tunisia, 940 in Greece and 840 in Egypt.

Since February 26 more than 2,740 people have returned home by air. On March 3 1,120 people boarded ships at Benghazi, Tripoli and Malta seaports. The vessels will land at Hai Phong Port but the date of arrival has not been determined.

In addition, around 1,500 people are moving to the border of Libya. A Vietnamese mission is currently in Tunisia to deal with any predicaments that may arise.

“On the afternoon of March 3 afternoon, there were still over 300 Vietnamese trapped in Libya. They will be evacuated in the next several days,” Hai said.

Hai also said that it is very difficult for the mission of the Vietnamese Government to enter Libya so Vietnam asked the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to cooperate with the Vietnamese Embassy in Libya to evacuate Vietnamese workers.

“It is good news that on the morning of March 3 the Libyan Economic Cooperation Office in Hanoi asked our department to provide information about workers who are stuck in Libya so they can help our workers,” Hai added.

Nguyen Quoc Nam, from the IOM in Hanoi, told VNExpress online newspaper that the biggest challenge at present is to approach and rescue the workers stuck in Libya.

“One day ago, an IOM mission entered Libya to see whether it can set up a safety corridor with the assistance of the local authorities to evacuate foreign citizens, including Vietnamese. The situation in Libya is very unsafe now. If foreign citizens are removed, there may be causalities,” Nam said.

In related news, Vietnam Airlines has organized three flights to Djerba city in Tunisia to bring Vietnamese laborers home, with the chief pilot as its senior officials. The airline has also set up working groups led by its Deputy General Directors to support Vietnamese citizens who have evacuated from Libya to neighboring countries.

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. No injury has been reported so far.

PV