Four gardai and two Army officers are among the UN contingent attempting to escape from the besieged United Nations headquarters in the East Timor capital, Dili, yesterday.
The Irish personnel are among some 200 UN military, police and civilian personnel who are the last of the UN force sent to monitor the independence referendum in the country.
The gardai and military contingent were sent to East Timor after the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, took a significant interest in developments in the country. The Government agreed to Irish personnel participating in UNAMET (the UN mission in East Timor).
Five of the nine gardai serving with the mission are now outside the conflict area. The conditions of the remaining UN personnel, 160 local employees, 24 journalists and 1,500 civilian refugees in the UN compound are being monitored from a UN station in Darwin in Australia.
Comdt Matt Murray of the Army is working in the Darwin centre and is relaying information about conditions in Dili.
One of the gardai to leave East Timor, Supt Gerry Phillips from Co Donegal, reported that the UN station 80 miles outside Dili, where he had been serving, came under heavy fire for two hours.
The four gardai remaining in Dili were named yesterday as Garda Jennifer Treacy, from Carlow; Garda John Murphy, from Co Mayo; Garda Anne Dorian, from Co Louth; and Sgt Larry Mythen, from Wexford.
The two Irish military observers are Comdt Sean Fox, from Greystones, Co Wicklow and Lieut-Col Pat O'Sullivan.
The gardai who were evacuated along with Supt Phillips are Garda Paul Cullen, from Dublin; Garda Julie Dunphy, from Co Westmeath; Garda Robert McConn, from Roscommon; and Sgt John McGing, from Kildare.
There are 66 UN civilian staff, an 80-strong UN civilian contingent including the gardai; 55 military liaison officer including Lieut-Col O'Sullivan and Comdt Fox; 162 local civilian employees, nine Portuguese civilian observers as well as the 24 journalists and 1,500 refugees in the compound. Some 500 of the refugees are children.
The UN operation to evacuate its staff and the civilian employees started yesterday after the compound was surrounded and came under fire during the previous two days.
Militias were reported to have burned the UN's last food depot in Dili yesterday. The UN mission was said to have only enough supplies for another 24 hours, a Portuguese journalist reported.
"We've been trying to get to our supplies for the last three days. We've been totally blocked in every attempt," a UN spokesman said.
The UN observers sent a patrol into Dili early yesterday and reported evidence of looting, burning and killing. The patrol also reported seeing some 5,000 people herded into the port of Dili awaiting deportation to Indonesian West Timor.
Joe Humphreys adds:
Members of the public were urged to boycott Indonesian goods and holiday resorts such as Bali at a demonstration in Dublin yesterday.
Up to 500 people attended the protest outside the British embassy in Ballsbridge, calling for the immediate deployment of peacekeeping troops in East Timor and the exertion of pressure on Indonesia to end the bloodshed.
The organisers, the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign and AFrI, also condemned the British government for inviting the Indonesian military to an arms fair in Surrey next month.
The campaign co-ordinator, Mr Tom Hyland, said the UN was "running for cover" by claiming it could not act without the agreement of Indonesia.
"The UN has never recognised Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor as legitimate or legal so there is no reason why it shouldn't send a peacekeeping force in now."
Reiterating the urgent need for a peacekeeping force, Mr Joe Murray, co-ordinator of AFrI, accused the international community of colluding with the Indonesian military by supplying it with arms.
Mr Eamonn Meehan, head of Trocaire's overseas department, said Indonesia had "not been touched by moral arguments. We must impose financial sanctions".
All IMF, World Bank and EU loans as well as development assistance should be suspended, he said. "We must not bankroll mass murder."