Home-bound Chinese nationals to leave Libya by air, sea and road

BEIJING - China on Wednesday activated an emergency plan to evacuate its citizens from conflict-torn Libya by air, road and sea as the first group of Chinese nationals headed home.

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Before the turmoil erupted there were more than 30,000 Chinese people living in Libya, many of whom worked in the construction and telecom sectors.

The first chartered evacuation flight, an A330-200, stocked with food and medicine, left for Athens on Wednesday afternoon. It remains unclear whether the plane, expected to arrive in the Greek capital around 9 pm local time, can actually land in Libya as flight operations have been disrupted amid the turmoil.

If landing permission is granted the plane could bring home about 250 Chinese nationals early on Friday.

A second chartered plane is scheduled to take off at 2 am on Thursday and fly to Cairo to pick up Chinese nationals already evacuated from Libya.

On land, an emergency team from the Chinese embassy in Tunisia organized a fleet of 30 buses to head to Libya. At the Ras Jedir border checkpoint, the buses will evacuate 2,900 Chinese nationals stranded there, Chinese Ambassador to Tunisia Huo Zhengde told the Xinhua News Agency.

If all goes to plan, the Chinese nationals will be driven to the Tunisian resort of Girba and stay there before taking chartered flights home.

Lu Jingchun, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Egypt, said it was fully prepared to evacuate people stranded at border checkpoints.

As for the sea route, the Chinese embassy in Greece said it had chartered three Greek ships to go to Libya to withdraw up to 13,000 Chinese nationals to the southern Greek island of Crete before flying them back to China.

The first two ships, which together can carry about 3,800 people, arrived off Benghazi port in eastern Libya on Wednesday and "are waiting for permission to dock", Liu Wei, an embassy staff member, told China Daily, adding that a third ship was also on the way.

Liu added about 100 Greeks and citizens from other European nations will also board the Chinese ships.

The Chinese embassy in Malta also sent a ship to Libya to pick up about 2,000 Chinese nationals.

"They will go home later on chartered flights, but we have to first make sure they are fed and have proper accommodation once they arrive here. They can stay on the ship, at least initially, as it has catering facilities and beds," Fu Zhimin, an embassy staff member, said.

Meanwhile, a group of 43 Chinese nationals who fled Libya were set to depart for Beijing, from Egypt, on Wednesday night (Beijing time) on a commercial flight, the Chinese embassy in Egypt said.

They were part of a total of 83 Chinese nationals from China State Construction Engineering Corp who were evacuated from Libya to Egypt's northern port city of Alexandria on Tuesday night.

The remaining 40 were scheduled to leave for Beijing some hours later, the Chinese embassy said.

With the help of the Chinese embassy in Sofia, 10 Chinese nationals from Hubei province, working near Tripoli, took a chartered plane and arrived in the Bulgarian capital before traveling to Moscow where they will get a flight to Beijing.

Some Chinese workers in Libya said earlier that nearly all Chinese companies in the country were "attacked or looted."

A site run by China's Huafeng Construction Co Ltd in eastern Libya was attacked by armed looters over the weekend who stole computers and other equipment and forced nearly 1,000 Chinese out of their living quarters.

Meanwhile, the 15 Chinese wounded by Libyan rioters, all of them staff members of Sinohydro Corporation working on local projects, are in stable condition in local hospitals, a diplomatic source told China Daily.

Xinhua contributed to this story.