World scrambles to ease looming Libya refugee crisis

ROME—The UN’s food donor agency launched a 38.7 million dollar programme to feed 2.7 million people trapped in Libya’s turmoil as the world scrambled to ease a looming refugee crisis on its borders with Egypt and Tunisia.

Europe dispatched its crisis response chief to ease a potential humanitarian crisis on the Libya-Tunisia border as Britain and France prepared to evacuate thousands of stranded Egyptians by air and sea.

The World Food Programme said emergency food had been shipped to the Tunisia-Libya border where tens of thousands trying to flee Libya have massed and shipments of food assistance were being re-routed.

High energy biscuits were being distributed at crossing points on the Libya-Tunisa border and shipments of wheat flour rerouted to the Tunisian border and the Libyan port of Benghazi, it added.

Amid pleas for assistance from the UN refugee agency to cope with “a humanitarian emergency” on Libya’s borders, the European Union tripled crisis funds from three to 10 million euros.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said close to 100,000 people — mainly foreign migrants — had fled the turmoil engulfing Libya in a week, with food and shelter running short for masses huddling in cold on the borders.

“This is a human tragedy,” said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. “We must do more to help those who are in this terrible situation.”

Most were Egyptians, but stranded migrant workers from as far afield as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Chad, Vietnam and Bangladesh were among those clamouring for help.

“It’s logistically very delicate, many of these people don’t have any identification,” Barroso said.

“The EU must step up its contribution now,” he added.

Europe’s humanitarian aid and crisis response commissioner Kristalina Georgieva was being dispatched immediately to the Tunisia border “to oversee operations”, he said.

Expressing hopes the bloc’s 27 members would leap in with help, the head of the EU’s executive arm said medical aid, food and shelter were being offered at both the Egyptian and Tunisian borders.

In Geneva, Antonio Guterres, the High Commissioner for Refugees, said “we call upon the international community to respond quickly and generously to enable these governments to cope with this humanitarian emergency.”

As Pope Benedict XVI added his voice to growing concern over the refugee crisis, both London and Paris announced plans to pluck to safety thousands of Egyptians left stranded on Tunisia’s border with chaotic Libya.

France is to send heavy-lift planes and a ship to create an air and sea bridge to ferry 5,000 Egyptian refugees home within a week, the foreign ministry said.

In London, Prime Minister David Cameron announced an airlift also to bring migrant Egyptians home from the Tunisian border area, with the first flight scheduled to leave for north Africa on Wednesday.

“These people shouldn’t be kept in transit camps if it’s possible to take them back to their home,” Cameron told parliament.

In Gibraltar, the military said British frigate, the HMS Westminster, was en route for the Libya crisis zone with extra medical stores plus blankets and sheets.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi too decided Tuesday to send humanitarian aid to help 10,000 refugees fleeing Libya for Tunisia.

The head of the WFP said earlier in Rome after a private audience at the Vatican that the pontiff had “expressed his concern for the innocent people trapped in this terrible tragedy.”

“I was so moved that His Holiness asked for this briefing,” said WFP executive director Josette Sheeran who met the pope after returning from the Libya-Tunisia border.

“It was clear to me as I saw these desperate people pour across the border — more than 2,000 an hour — that the world must act — and must act quickly — to prevent a major humanitarian disaster,” she said.

On Tuesday, a UNHCR spokeswoman expressed concern that some waiting at the border to cross had been in the queue for as long as three days and that sub-Saharan Africans were in particular not being allowed into Tunisia.

“We’re very concerned that racism could be a factor” blocking the exit of sub-Saharan Africans, said Melissa Fleming.

“All borders, land, air and sea should be opened in a non-discriminatory manner. Anyone who needs to flee should be able to flee.”