VietNamNet Bridge - At around 1 o’clock in the morning of March 9 (Vietnam time), a Vietnam Airlines aircraft will leave Tunisia’s Djerba airport with the last of the Vietnamese workers evacuated from Libya.

In Djerba on March 7, Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister Doan Xuan Hung told reporters that two more planes, chartered by the International Organization of Immigration, will leave at noon Tuesday with workers.

“Our duty to ensure safe repatriation of Vietnamese workers from Libya has been completed basically.”

However, diplomatic personnel from the Vietnamese embassy in Libya will continue to stay in Djerba for a few days in case any more workers are evacuated from Libya, he said.

By Monday morning 2,415 Vietnamese workers had been evacuated to Tunisia from Libya, he added.

Seventeen flights were organized Monday to bring home Vietnamese workers from countries bordering or near Libya, Tao said.

Most of them arrived at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport.

Six of them landed at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City with 200 evacuees.

By March 7 morning the total number of returnees by air was around 8,200.

A vessel carrying 1,121 Vietnamese, which left the Libyan port of Benghazi March 3, is on its way to Hai Phong.

Its ETA is unknown since it is the first passenger ship to sail on this route. It normally takes cargo vessels 15 days to reach Hai Phong from Benghazi.

Timelines of the rescue of Vietnamese workers from Libya

January 15: Benghazi city in Libya was moved by the demonstration of thousands of people against the government led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi since 1969. There were around 10,400 Vietnamese working at construction sites in Libya at that time.

February 18: Dozens of demonstrators in Benghazi, the second largest state in Libya, were shot dead. Vietnam stopped sending workers to Libya. Labor exporting firms were told to keep an eye on the situation in Libya and to ask Vietnamese workers to avoid public sites.

February 24: Many countries began to evacuate their citizens from Libya. Vietnamese Ambassador to Libya Dao Duy Tien said that some Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya by land, air and water by their Korean, Brazilian, Turkish employers.

The Vietnamese government established a steering board to assist Vietnamese in the Middle East and North Africa. The board, led by Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, is in charge of evacuating Vietnamese from Libya and bringing them home.

February 25: 2,000 Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya to Egypt, Turkey, Malta and Tunisia. Around 2,500 were on the way to the border of Libya.

Vietnam asked the IOM to assist Vietnamese workers in Libya.

February 26: Around 4,600 Vietnamese workers were brought to the neighboring countries of Libya and nearly 4,000 others were on the way to the border.

The same day, the first aircraft of Vietnam Airlines left Hanoi with 8 tons of food, clothes and medicine to Egypt to help Vietnamese citizens.

March 1: The aircraft returned to Hanoi with 318 Vietnamese workers. The same days, flights of other airlines also carried Vietnamese workers from Libya to Hanoi, raising the total number to 1,450.

March 2: More than 6,000 Vietnamese left Libya to third countries. Around 2,800 arrived home safely while 3,000 were on their way to the border. Around 300 were still trapped in Libya.

March 3: 8,250 Vietnamese were evacuated from Libya to other countries, 2,740 of them returned home safely. The remaining workers were in five neighboring countries of Libya or on the way home by waterway. In addition, there were nearly 300 others trapped in Libya.

March 6: All 10,334 Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya, 7,000 of them returned home.

Source: Tuoi Tre