Evacuees passing through Malta exceed 13,000

The Brazilian Ambassador in Rome thanked Malta for its “invaluable” help in evacuating over 3,200 employees of a Brazilian oil drilling company from Tripoli in recent days.

The employees of Odebrecht were granted entry into Malta after being helped leave Tripoli in a “complex emergency operation”, Ambassador Josè Viegas Filho said in a letter to Malta’s Ambassador in Rome, Walter Balzan.

The evacuees, who came from 20 countries and included over 100 Brazilian nationals, felt they had to “flee Libya unexpectedly” and used Malta as a “gateway” to their home countries. “For this reason, my government and I, personally, feel extremely grateful,” Mr Filho said.

Meanwhile, the UK warship HMS York arrived in Benghazi, Libya yesterday with medical supplies it picked up in Malta. She sailed into Benghazi harbour at about 12.30 p.m.

Commanding Officer Simon Staley said: “There has been a real international flavour to this mission, with the Maltese Armed Forces transporting the Swedish medical supplies so the UK could deliver them to Libyans in need”.

The warship will also evacuate people stranded in the east of the country before sailing back.

Virtù Ferries catamarans, which have made a number of chartered evacuation trips from Tripoli, have now widened their reach, also covering Misurata and Sirte.

A Russian ship sailed into the Grand Harbour yesterday morning, bringing 300 evacuees and the Virtù Ferries’ catamaran San Ġwann arrived in the afternoon with about 66 Indian nationals.

The latest figures show that in excess of 13,000 people from different countries have been evacuated through Malta. Just over 9,300 were evacuated by sea.