A number of workers, one of them Maltese, were evacuated from Libya to Malta by their companies yesterday as the situation in that country continued to deteriorate.
Two civilian helicopters and a private jet landed at the airport with a handful of people despite Libyan airspace having been closed since Sunday.
A government source said the helicopters carried six passengers and four crew members in all. One of the passengers was a Maltese national and the rest were French.
All work for a firm in Libya that decided to pull out its employees.
On arrival the passengers attributed the evacuation ordered by their company to “heavy fighting in Tripoli”, the source said.
The helicopters, which belong to Heliunion, a French company that services the oil and gas industry, left from Mitiga airport on the outskirts of the Libyan capital and landed in Malta at 3pm.
The airplane belongs to Air Libya, a Benghazi-based private company, and is believed to have left from Benghazi in the east. It landed at MIA at 3.45pm.
Libyan airspace closed after fighting broke out at Tripoli airport between rival militias on Sunday. The airport was again attacked by rockets yesterday, with reports claiming that some 15 people were killed when the control tower was hit. Several aircraft on the apron were damaged.
Sources in Libya confirmed that an aircraft belonging to Medavia, a Maltese-Libyan company, was hit in its fuselage and tail during Sunday’s gun battle.
The helicopters rekindled memories of a similar evacuation that involved the same aircraft in February 2011 at the start of the revolution which toppled Muammar Gaddafi. That time, the helicopters’ arrival had been followed closely by two military jets that defected to Malta after the pilots disobeyed orders to shoot on civilians.
Violence in Libya escalated yesterday as rival militias battled for control of strategic assets with a weak central government unable to exert influence and control.
The Maltese Foreign Ministry said it was closely monitoring developments in Libya and through its Tripoli embassy was keeping contact with Maltese known to be in Libya.
“There are some 100 Maltese we know are in Libya and the embassy was contacting them to determine whether they needed any assistance,” a spokeswoman said, adding no evacuation had been ordered yet.
The Maltese embassy remained operational.
As hostilities escalated the United Nations evacuated its workers from Palm City, the Corinthia-owned luxury village on the outskirts of Tripoli, two days ago in a land convoy to Tunisia. US Secretary of State John Kerry called for a halt to the “dangerous” levels of violence.
Former army commander Brigadier Carm Vassallo, chief executive at Malta Air Traffic Services, said the closure of Libya’s airspace had reduced air traffic over Malta as aircraft avoid the central Mediterranean corridor.
He said any air traffic between Europe and Africa had to avoid Libya and this meant aircraft were diverted over Egypt and Tunisia.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com