A ship, carrying migrants and civilian casualties from the Libyan city Misrata, docks at the port of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. AFP
MANILA, Philippines—More than 100 Filipinos are trapped in the Libyan city of Misrata, including women and children who need to be evacuated amid “shelling and shooting,” the International Organization for Migration reported on Thursday.
“IOM has been made aware of 109 Filipinos in Misrata, including women and children who also need to be evacuated but the organization has not been able to establish contact with the group,” IOM said in a report posted on its Web site.
About 800 people, including stranded migrants and up to 50 wounded civilians were rescued by IOM from Misrata despite shelling and shooting in the port vicinity, according to IOM. But it was not clear if any Filipinos were in this group.
“Details on the nationalities and the exact number of migrants will be known in the hours to come,” it said. Other details on the 109 Filipinos were not available.
“We did our best and took everyone we could in a very short time, including Libyan women and children whose relatives had been wounded,” said IOM team leader Othman Belbeisi.
He said hundreds of Libyan civilians had also tried to board the ship in desperation to get out of Misrata. But with limited capacity, the ramp of the boat had to be pulled up so that the ship could pull away from the dock in safety.
IOM staff on its chartered boat, the Red Star One, reported they had to wait three hours after docking before people showed up, giving them less than an hour to try and evacuate as many people as possible.
“Heavy shelling of Misrata in addition to mines having been laid had prevented the IOM boat from docking for five days. The fighting had forced at least 1,000 migrants who had been waiting at the port to be evacuated to flee the area,” IOM said.
IOM said it had been hoping to rescue about 1,000 stranded migrants in addition to evacuating the most serious medical cases.
IOM is an intergovernmental organization established in 1951 that is “committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society.”
The group said the sound of continuous gunfire could be heard in the background during the satellite communication with IOM staff on the ship.
The 180 tons of humanitarian aid comprising food, non-food and medical supplies had been off-loaded before the boat departed for Benghazi.
The successful rescue mission was IOM’s sixth since early April. “In that time, the Organization has delivered almost 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the besieged city and safely brought back to Benghazi about 6,000 stranded migrants, wounded civilians and their families,” it said.
IOM’s humanitarian evacuation program out of Misrata is funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civilian Protection Office, Britain’s Department for International Development, Germany, Ireland and Australia.