VietNamNet Bridge - As many as 8,476 Vietnamese guest workers escaping from political chaos in Libya had returned home by the end of March 8, said an official in charge of labor management.

Nguyen Xuan Tao, Deputy Head of the Labor Management Division under the Overseas Labor Management Department of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said flight VN 8686, carrying 215 workers currently in Tunisia, was due to land at Noi Bai International Airport at 8:00 am on March 9.

The flight will be the tenth and last of the largest ever “air bridge” launched by the national flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines, to transport Vietnamese workers in Libya home.

Those Vietnamese workers, accompanied by the governmental inter-branch working team in Tunisia, will be welcomed at the airport by Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

Some 50 Vietnamese workers in Turkey and Egypt are currently on other commercial flights heading home.

According to Tao, the Japanese Hamanasu ship with more than 1,000 Vietnamese workers aboard, which left the port of Benghazi in Libya on March 3, was expected to dock at Hai Phong port on March 21.

The ship was rented by Brazilian contractor Construtora Queiroz Galvao S.A.

Nguyen Quoc Nam, a representative of Vietnam International Organization for Migration (IOM), reported that two IOM-funded flights with 272 Vietnamese workers aboard will land at the Noi Bai International Airport at 10:55 am on March 9.

IOM has sent its regional official in Rome to the Algeria-Libya border to assist in coordinating with relevant Vietnamese offices to help 292 Vietnamese workers currently in the safe area return home as soon as possible, Nam said.

Source: VNA