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UN: Libyan refugee crisis tops 140,000 in Tunisia, Egypt

Associated Press

GENEVA – Violence and chaos in Libya have triggered an exodus of more than 140,000 refugees to Tunisia and Egypt, a U.N. official said, as aid workers warned the situation at the Tunisian border has reached crisis point.

Officials say the situation has been made even more volatile by humanitarian aid workers being blocked from reaching western Libya, patients reportedly being executed in hospitals, or shot by gunmen hiding in ambulances

At the Libya-Tunisian border – where authorities say up to 75,000 people have gathered in just nine days – “the situation is reaching crisis point,” U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming warned Tuesday.

She said 14,000 people fled to Tunisia on Monday and another 15,000 are expected to flee Tuesday.

The U.N. is setting up enough tents to hold 12,000 people and plans two more airlifts Thursday to bring in tents and supplies for 10,000 more, but water supplies are “precarious,” she warned.

Italy said late Tuesday after an emergency meeting on the Libya crisis that it will send a humanitarian mission to the Tunisian border to assist some 10,000 refugees.

In Egypt, authorities said another 69,000 people have fled into the country from Libya in the past 10 days, most of them Egyptians who have already been taken to other towns and cities.

Thousands of Vietnamese and Bangladeshis at the Libyan side of the border with Tunisia are “in urgent need of food, water and shelter,” said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration. Nepalese, Ghanaians and Nigerians are also sleeping unprotected at the borders, she said.

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