The UN’s food donor agency launched a $38.7 million programme to feed 2.7 million people trapped in Libya’s turmoil as the world scrambled to ease a looming refugee crisis on its borders with Egypt and Tunisia.

Europe dispatched its crisis response chief to ease a potential humanitarian crisis on the Libya-Tunisia border as Britain and France prepared to evacuate thousands of stranded Egyptians by air and sea.

The World Food Programme said emergency food had been shipped to the Tunisia-Libya border where tens of thousands trying to flee Libya have massed and shipments of food assistance were being re-routed.

High energy biscuits were being distributed at crossing points on the Libya-Tunisia border and shipments of wheat flour rerouted to the Tunisian border and the Libyan port of Benghazi, it added.

Amid pleas for assistance from the UN refugee agency to cope with “a humanitarian emergency” on Libya’s borders, the European Union tripled crisis funds from three to €10 million.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said close to 100,000 people – mainly foreign migrants – had fled the turmoil engulfing Libya in a week, with food and shelter running short for masses huddling in cold on the borders.

“This is a human tragedy,” said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. “We must do more to help those who are in this terrible situation.”

Most were Egyptians, but stranded migrant workers from as far afield as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Chad, Vietnam and Bangladesh were among those clamouring for help.