The first group of evacuees will consist of 201 employees of state-owned companies PT WIKA who were working on a construction project in Libya and Indonesian students
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government is to begin evacuating Indonesian nationals from strife-torn Libya on Friday (Feb 25), a spokesman said.

"The evacuation will be conducted using a plane chartered from Tunis Air. At 18.30 local time today, the plane will arrive in Libya and our citizens will be evacuated to Tunisia," foreign ministry spokesman Michael Tene said at a press conference here Friday.

A total of 875 Indonesians were now living in Libya and 500 of them were employees of local or Indonesian companies operating in the country.

"The first group of evacuees will consist of 201 employees of state-owned companies PT WIKA who were working on a construction project in Libya and Indonesian students," Michael said adding that the evacuees would be flown to Tunisia first while the mechanism for their further evacuation would be discussed later.

Michael said he could not yet announce the exact number of evacuees since the registration process was still on-going.

"The plane`s capacity is around 250 to 260, so I think the number of the first group of evacuees will be around that figure," Michael added.

Michael also said the Foreign Affairs Ministry would send a few of its officers to Tripoli to help the local embassy staff there in carrying out the evacuation plan. The decision was made due to the limited human resources at the embassy. "Currently, the embassy in Tripoli is manned by only four people, including the ambassador," Tene said.

Asked about the present conditions of Indonesians in Libya, Michael said they were all safe. However he strongly suggested Indonesians living there to remain in contact with the embassy in Tripoli.

The uprising in Libya has left more than 1,000 people dead, 600 in the capital alone, Moamer Kadhafi`s former protocol chief Nouri el-Mismari told AFP Wednesday.

Mismari, who came to France late last year for health reasons, said the insurrection had so far left "more than 1,000 people dead in all of Libya" but did not say what information his estimate was based on.

On Tuesday, Libya`s regime said 300 people had been killed in the protests, but the International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) said on Wednesday that at least 640 had died.

"It`s very very serious. Libyans won`t stop", to end his 41-year rule, Mismari said. "This is the end of Moamer Kadhafi."

"Moamer Kadhafi does not even have five percent of the country behind him," he said. Members of his clan were "not fighting for him but for themselves".

Mismari whom Tripoli wants extradited said that "mercenaries" were killing many people.

"They are shooting blindly" while the air force will not shoot at the people, he added.

Kadhafi`s regime has lost vast swathes of Libya`s east to the insurrection, it emerged Wednesday, as the West prepared for a mass exodus from a "bloodbath" in the north African country.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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