The US State Department said it will begin evacuating American citizens from Libya by ferry to the Mediterranean island of Malta today.
In a notice sent to US citizens in Libya late yesterday, the department said Americans wishing to leave Libya in a government-chartered ferry should be at the As-shahab port in Tripoli with their passports starting at 9 a.m. local time today. The ferry will depart for Malta no later than 3 p.m.
At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East’s largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli, as reports spread that bodies of protesters littered the streets of neighborhoods in the capital.
Britain said it was redeploying a warship, the HMS Cumberland, off the Libyan coast in readiness for a possible sea-borne evacuation of British citizens stuck in the north African country. Foreign Secretary William Hague of Britain said his country was also seeking to send a charter flight to Libya, but the plane had yet to receive permission to land.
Two civilian ferries from Turkey arrived in the hard-hit eastern city of Benghazi late yesterday to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens, the Anatolia news agency reported. The ferries were expected to set sail back for Turkey as soon as the evacuees had boarded.
Turkey sent the ferries and another military vessel after the country was unable to get permission to land at the city’s airport.
Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek, said Turkish ferries could help evacuate up to 6,000 people per day, if Libyan authorities allow the vessels to dock at Benghazi.
About 5,000 Egyptians have returned home from Libya by land, and about 10,000 more are waiting to cross the Libya-Egypt border, an Egyptian security official said.
Egypt said it will also send six commercial and two military planes to repatriate thousands more caught in the revolt against Moammar Khadafy’s regime.
Some people were still getting out on regularly scheduled flights, but many countries were sending planes to fetch their citizens, with Serbia, Russia, the Netherlands, and France reporting they had permission to land in Tripoli, a process made more difficult by the uncertainty about who is in charge.
