Largest Turkish evacuation ever brings 5,000 home from Libya

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More than 5,000 Turks have been taken out of Libya within 72 hours in the largest-ever evacuation in Turkey’s history amid growing unrest that has killed one Turkish worker, the Turkish foreign minister said Wednesday.

According to Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, 5,099 Turks have been spirited out of crisis-hit Libya on ferries and charter and regular flights.

Speaking at a press conference in the crisis room established at the Foreign Ministry, Davutoğlu said one Turkish citizen, a 27-year-old worker from the Black Sea city of Trabzon, had been killed in Tripoli.

The Doğan news agency, or DHA, reported that the worker was killed by long-range weapons fire while he was climbing a crane.

Charter and regular flights have been arranged to evacuate 1,422 Turks from Tripoli, 429 from Benghazi and 248 from Alexandria, Egypt, while two ferries are transporting 3,000 Turks from Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, Davutoğlu said. He added that the Foreign Ministry was working to evacuate Turkish citizens from Libyan seaports to Egypt or Tunisia, where they could more easily be brought home on planes.

The private channel NTV reported Wednesday that planes carrying close to 250 Turks had landed successfully in Turkey.

Turkey has approximately 25,000 citizens living in Libya, where more than 200 Turkish companies are involved in construction projects worth some $15 billion.

Some 4,000 to 5,000 Turkish citizens have requested evacuation from Libya, Davutoğlu said, though he cautioned that the situation there was not static and such figures were constantly changing. Saying Turkey’s number-one priority is evacuating its citizens from critical areas of Libya, he asked Turks in other parts of the country not to panic.

Turkey has previously evacuated citizens during a crisis in Kyrgyzstan, following the raid on the Gaza-bound aid ship Mavi Marmara and from Tunisia and Egypt during protests there. This operation, however, far outstrips the rest in its scale. Out of 400 Turkish diplomats, 120 are working in shifts to receive telephone calls from citizens and follow the progress of the dispatched ships 24 hours a day. Davutoğlu himself went to the crisis room after speaking to the press and answered telephone calls from Turkish citizens.

Turkey’s embassy and consulate in Libya have also been provided with additional staff.

In his comments Wednesday, Davutoğlu emphasized that Turkey was taking additional measures and producing alternative plans to ensure the safety of its citizens. “We are not leaving Libya. We are taking security measures,” he said.

In addition to the “Oruç Reis,” a ship belonging to the Naval Forces at the Gölcük naval base, two more frigates have been readied to make the journey to Libya and were expected to sail at midnight Wednesday, DHA reported. The ships would set out escorted by a helicopter and special teams to serve as a deterrent against a possible attack, it said.

“No country has conducted such an evacuation effort [from Libya] thus far,” Davutoğlu said, adding that 21 other countries – including the United States, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, France, China, Britain and Ukraine – had requested Turkey’s help in evacuating their citizens.

Turkey held crisis meetings Sunday and Tuesday to better coordinate its evacuation efforts. Davutoğlu briefed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan late Tuesday, while Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek briefed the opposition parties. The Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, did not attend the briefing, citing party leader Devlet Bahçeli’s busy schedule.

According to Davutoğlu, Turkey first crafted a plan to evacuate citizens by air, and then sent ships when air traffic was closed. Officials are now pondering whether to evacuate citizens by taking them overland to Egypt or Tunisia and then by plane back to Turkey.

The foreign minister also called on the international community to show solidarity with the people of Libya during the critical transformation process it is undergoing.

Largest Turkish evacuation ever brings 5,000 home from Libya - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review