Irina Kuts, 54, realised she had to leave her Benghazi home when fear crept in that she could be killed for being a non-Muslim foreigner.

The Ukrainian doctor, who has lived in Libya for 20 years, was one of more than 800 passengers evacuated to Malta yesterday on board a merchant ship.

She had to leave Benghazi with her husband, also a doctor, after the Islamists overran Libya’s second city.

Although the situation in Benghazi has grown calmer since the Islamists took over, Dr Kuts said a different sort of fear crept in, which she had not felt before.

Read more in Times of Malta.

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