Thousands of Libyans seek safety
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Nearly 150,000 people have crossed into Egypt and Tunisia
- Many are foreign workers in Libya and have no way to return to their respective countries
- The U.N. refugee agency fears problems with water, sanitation and shelter
Along The Libya-Tunisia Border (CNN) — Chaos reigned on Libya’s western border Tuesday as Tunisian police attempted to hold back a tide of desperate people fleeing escalating violence and uncertainty under Moammar Gadhafi.
The United Nations refugee agency warned of a humanitarian catastrophe as many of the nearly 150,000 people who have crossed over into Tunisia and Egypt are foreign workers — who have no way of making it back to their respective nations.
They include citizens of Bangladesh, Ghana and Mali, and many of them have had everything stolen from them, they said, and are left with nothing but the clothes on their back.
The agency erected 500 tents on Libya’s border with Tunisia. All of them are full.
Police used sticks to beat back people trying to jump over a wall into Tunisia. Volunteers threw bread and bottles of water into the no-man’s land, where thousands of people have been waiting for as many as three days, enduring bitter cold without shelter.
Staff members with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees described the water and sanitation situation as precarious.
Tunisian authorities told the refugee agency that about 75,000 people fled Libya across its western border. Up to 15,000 more people are expected to arrive Tuesday and the agency said it was “becoming critically important that onwards transport becomes quickly available to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”
The Egyptian government has reported 69,000 people — a majority of whom are Egyptian citizens — crossing into that nation.
The refugee agency said it was particularly concerned about a large number of sub-Saharan Africans who are being denied entry into Tunisia. They may be targets for retribution after reports that embattled Gadhafi recruited mercenaries from those nations to suppress the uprising in his country.
CNN’s Tim Lister contributed to this report.
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UN reports crisis on Libyan border