1,000 evacuated from Libya's devastated Misrata

 

 
 
 
 
The son of a rebel fighter holds his father's weapon at the front line along the western entrance of Ajdabiyah April 28, 2011.
 

The son of a rebel fighter holds his father's weapon at the front line along the western entrance of Ajdabiyah April 28, 2011.

Photograph by: Amr Abdallah Dalsh, Reuters

BENGHAZI, Libya - A humanitarian ship carrying about 1,000 people rescued from Libya's shell-shocked city of Misrata docked Thursday in the eastern rebel bastion of Benghazi, AFP correspondents witnessed.

Most on board the Red Star One, a ferry chartered by the International Organization for Migration, were African migrant workers who had been stranded in the besieged western city.

"We had some delays because of the security situation, the shelling and the bombing but other than that everything went well," said Othman Belbeisi, senior operations officer at the IOM.

The shelling of Misrata's port by troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi meant the Red Star One was forced to delay docking there until Wednesday morning, once the situation was calmer.

"We had to drift in the sea until we got clearance," Belbeisi said.

He added the ship was carrying 1,091 passengers, the overwhelming majority of them from Niger, who were due at a makeshift camp raised in an abandoned construction site in central Benghazi.

The ferry also carried small groups refugees from Sudan, Egypt and Tunisia as well as 30 Libyan medical cases and 50 accompanying family members, the IOM said in a statement.

The vessel had been equipped with three intensive care units to address the most critical cases, including a French blogger who suffered a severe gun shot wound to the neck, medics said.

"The first ambulance to leave the ship carried the blogger," said Matias Eick of the humanitarian aid department of the European Commission, which helps fund the Misrata evacuations.

The medical team aboard also treated 55 wounded passengers, five of them seriously, including Libyan fighters, although medical officials said they were unable to determine on which side they had fought.

"The majority suffered indirect wounds from explosions and shrapnel," a doctor with the International Medical Corps told AFP.

The IOM says nearly 626,000 people have fled the Libyan conflict and that it has already evacuated 5,512 people, the majority of them stranded migrant workers from more than 21 nationalities.

Some 400 African refugees remain stranded in Misrata, an AFP reporter said.

The French blogger, Baptiste Dubonnet, was transported to the Benghazi Medial Centre, and was under ventilation and sedation, medics said.

"Medically, he is stable, like we received him," said Doctor Imad Talahma.

"The transfer did not damage him but the prognosis is not clear," he added.

Five friends of the blogger — Crochet Soizic, Catherine Daphnee, Pierre-Nicolas Durepaire, Pierre Torres and Charles Torres — said in a group email they went to Misrata to cover the revolution for alternative media.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The son of a rebel fighter holds his father's weapon at the front line along the western entrance of Ajdabiyah April 28, 2011.
 

The son of a rebel fighter holds his father's weapon at the front line along the western entrance of Ajdabiyah April 28, 2011.

Photograph by: Amr Abdallah Dalsh, Reuters

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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