Turkey, Italy try to evacuate citizens from Libya

[February 22, 2011]  ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Governments scrambled to send planes and ships to pick up their citizens stranded by Libya's bloody unrest on Tuesday, with thousands of Turks crowding into a stadium to await evacuation and Egyptians gathering at the border to escape the chaos.

At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East's largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli, as reports spread that bodies of protesters littered the streets of a district in the capital.

Two civilian ferries from Turkey and one military ship were expected to arrive in the hard-hit city of Benghazi on Tuesday to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens after the country was unable to get permission to land at the airport.

About 5,000 Egyptians have returned home from Libya by land and about 10,000 more are waiting to cross the Libya-Egypt border, an Egyptian security official said. Egypt says it will also send six commercial and two military planes to repatriate thousands more citizens caught in the deadly revolt against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

Other countries said they were preparing planes to fetch their citizens, with Serbia and Russia saying they have permission to land in Tripoli.

More than 200 Turkish companies are involved in construction projects worth more than $15 billion in Libya, State Minister Zafer Caglayan, who oversees foreign trade, said Monday. Some of the construction sites reportedly came under attack by protesters but no Turkish citizens have been harmed so far, authorities said.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said 10 other countries have also asked for help from Turkey to evacuate their citizens. He did not identify the countries. He said Turkey was also evaluating options to evacuate its citizens through Tunisia or Egypt.

The Anatolia news agency said two more ships would set sail Tuesday and Wednesday.

Italy was also sending an air force transport aircraft to Benghazi to evacuate roughly 100 Italian citizens from there. Italy's state radio said Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa made the announcement to reporters in Abu Dhabi, where he is on an official visit.

Italy, with large energy interests in Libya, has some 1,500 citizens living or working in the country. Some citizens have been leaving in recent days aboard regularly scheduled commercial flights from Tripoli.

The Dutch foreign ministry said a military plane was waiting at a military airport in the southern city of Eindhoven for permission to land in Tripoli to pick up more than 100 Dutch citizens seeking to leave Libya. It later announced that a Navy Frigate, HMS Tromp, which had been on its way to protect ships from pirates off the Somali coast, was diverting to Libya as a precaution in case the plane did not get permission to land in Tripoli.

"Our people need to get back as quickly as possible," Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said. "We are doing all we can to get landing permission."

Russian Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said in televised comments that an Il-76 plane is to take off for Tripoli on Tuesday to collect 134 Russians who are "ready for evacuation."

A total of 563 people are to be evacuated eventually on four planes, she said. Most are employees of state companies Russian Railways and Gazprom, plus their families. She said authorities are in negotiations with diplomats in Libya to open its airspace for the Russian planes to land.

[Associated Press; By SELCAN HACAOGLU]

Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Mike Corder in Amsterdam and David Nowak in Moscow contributed to this report.

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