SOME 27 Irish citizens remained in Libya last night as members of the Irish emergency civil assist team withdrew to Malta.
Marie Cross, assistant secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs, said last night Tripoli airport had become very dangerous and the team had gone back to Valetta with a view to considering the situation this morning: “We will go back if we possibly can.”
She said they were aware of 21 Irish people still in Tripoli, but only six had made contact to say they wanted to leave. And they were afraid to travel to the airport yesterday. All 12 Irish who were in Benghazi were evacuated by sea.
Another six are located in the desert. Three had been advised to remain where they were and efforts were continuing at EU level to arrange alternatives for them.
The civil assist team arrived in Tripoli yesterday morning and set up a stand in at the airport for Irish citizens . They met two Irish citizens who later left on an evacuation flight and were told that two others had left that morning.
The Air Corp Casa aircraft remained at Valetta airport in Malta on stand-by to fly in to Tripoli if necessary.
Ms Cross defended the department’s handling of the evacuation, saying that a team had been set up within two hours of the crisis to assist people.
It is understood the department is also liaising with a young Libyan woman who spoke on RTÉ radio yesterday. “Aysha”, who had lived in Ireland for some years before returning to Libya, told the Morning Ireland programme Col Muammar Gadafy had appeared on state television pretending everything was normal.
He told the mothers of Tripoli to bring their children to school and to go to work. But people were afraid to go out.
“I’ve been stuck here in the house for the past week. Women are very scared to go out because people say these mercenaries are around and rape and what not. I’m not sure of that, but we really don’t know,” she said.
She also said men had been taken from their homes by security forces and those wounded or killed in the unrest had disappeared.
Col Gadafy had invited in the international media who were being driven around the streets of the capital. They were talking to people on the street, but what they didn’t realise was that the people couldn’t speak to them. “There is no freedom of speech. There are spies all over the city,” she said.
Aysha said she believed a march was being planned by some “boys” and she was scared by reports that Gadafy had mustard gas and would use it on demonstrators.
“I personally think if he had it he would have used it in Benghazi. But they say he has it here and could use it.”
