02 March 2011
The British Government will provide emergency evacuation flights to repatriate up to six thousand people stranded in Tunisia to prevent the humanitarian situation on the border with Libya spiralling further into disaster, the Prime Minister David Cameron announced today.
The move comes following the UN's request for international assistance to get those people out and home. At least 85,000 people have crossed the border between Libya and Tunisia so far and many are stranded in hastily organised camps. Thousands of migrants are still sleeping in the open.
The UK Government is providing three commercial charter planes on rotation to fly people away from the camps back to their home, as the most effective method of helping tackle this emerging humanitarian disaster.
The first two planes are scheduled to leave East Midlands and Stansted airports today. They will fly to Djerba airport in Tunisia to collect stranded migrants and fly them to Cairo where they will be met by the Egyptian authorities.
The Department for International Development has already flown 36,000 blankets and tents for 1,500 people in Tunisia and remains in close contact with the UN and others to get more relief supplies in and people out.
Andrew Mitchell, International Development Secretary said:
"There is a real danger that without urgent assistance the humanitarian situation on the Libyan border will deteriorate rapidly.
"We are deeply concerned that the large number of migrant workers fleeing Libya lack even basic shelter and face a shortage of food and clean water.
"We must act now to stop the situation deteriorating. Our evacuation flights are vital if we are to stop this humanitarian emergency from becoming a crisis.
"We call on others from the international community to follow our lead and help get these people out of the desperate situation they are in and home to their families."
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