UN: 180,000 people flee Libyan violence

Djerba, Tunisia (CNN) — Nearly 180,000 people, mainly foreign workers, have fled the violence in Libya into the neighboring nations of Tunisia and Egypt, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday.

Chaos has reigned on the Tunisian border for days as thousands clamor to get out of Libya. Many have been trapped in a no-man’s land in between the two countries.

About 95,000 people have crossed into Tunisia and another 83,000 into Egypt, the refugee agency estimated.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office sounded an urgent appeal to governments to help in a mass evacuation that is required to get people out. Many of the foreign workers have little money and no travel documents with them.

Among them are Bangladeshis, Vietnamese, Thais, Koreans, Malians, Ghanaians and Sudanese who came to Libya seeking better economic outcomes in their lives.

A majority of the workers are Egyptian citizens and that country’s caretaker government has paid for flights from coastal Djerba to Cairo to shuttle thousands of stranded people out Thursday.

As of Thursday afternoon, 17 flights had left since midnight carrying about 2,700 passengers. Another 13 are scheduled to carry 2,080 more passengers out Thursday.

Meanwhile, the sudden surge in population along the border has prompted village bakeries to boost production by up to 30 percent.

“The situation here remains tense,” said Firas Kayal, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency on the Tunisian border. “There is lots of congestion on this side of the border and we are hearing that many thousands are waiting on the Libyan side to come through.

“The local community has been so generous in providing food, medicines and places to stay, but the capacity of the local community is reaching its limit because the numbers are so huge,” he said.

CNN’s Raja Razek, Ivan Watson and Moni Basu and journalist Catriona Davies contributed to this report.