RAS JDIR, Tunisia (Reuters) – An organized international airlift relieved the high pressure human flood from Libya into Tunisia on Thursday, as word spread to thousands of stranded refugees that planes were taking them home.
After three days of chaos and a moment of panic when troops fired into the air to control crowds, a sense of order and calm was established at the Ras Jdir border crossing.
Egyptian migrant laborers, many working illegally in Libya, were being bussed from a U.N. relief agency transit camp near the frontier to Djerba airport where some 40 evacuation flights were due to fly them out to Cairo during the day.
Signaling that international help was finally being mobilized, European Union humanitarian crisis chief Kristalina Georgieva visited the border area.
“The European Union is doing everything we can to pressure (Libyan leader Muammar) Gaddafi to let people go and to stop torturing his people,” said Georgieva, the most senior international official to come to the crisis zone.
At Djerba airport, long queues built up outside the terminal building and the check-in desks were packed.
France was providing six flights every day for the next days, said the French ambassador to Tunisia, Boris Boillon.
British charters have also begun a shuttle
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