EU sends fact-finding mission to Libya

As the fighting between forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his opponents intensified, the European Union has sent a fact-finding mission to Tripoli to assess the humanitarian and evacuation needs there ahead of an EU crisis summit on Libya this week.

The EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she decided to send the mission in order to get a first hand information on the situation in Libya which will be presented to the heads of state and government when they meet in Brussels on Friday.

The EU leaders are expected to draw up an action plan for providing humanitarian assistance and for supporting the transition to democracy in the region.

The EU delegation, the first international mission to visit Libya since the uprising against the regime of Col Gaddafi began nearly three weeks ago, is led by Agostino Miozzo, Managing Director of the European External Action Service for Crisis Response and Operational Coordination, Ashton said in a press statement.

The mission left for Tripoli yesterday, the statement said.

The summit was convened at the initiative of British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It will discuss short term measures to deal with the humanitarian situation caused by the influx of refugees from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt as well as long-term support for the political transition and economic development in Egypt, Tunisia and in other countries in the region.

The threat facing the EU, especially its southern member-nations, from a sharp increase in the number of asylum-seekers from north Africa also will be high on the agenda of the summit.

Meanwhile, the EU tripled its humanitarian assistance to 30 million euros to deal with the build up of refugees crossing into Tunisia from Libya.

EU commissioner for humanitarian assistance Kristalina Georgieva  made the announcement during a visit to the refugee camps along Tunisia's border with Libya.

She spoke of the situation there as a "major humanitarian crisis at Europe's doorstep."

The United Nations refugee organisation UNHCR estimates that over 90,000 refugees have already crossed into Tunisia since February 27 to escape the violence.

The majority of the refugees are migrant workers from Egypt and Tunisia, but there are also hundreds of refugees from Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam as well as from sub-Saharan African nations, including Ethiopia, Eritrea, Chad, Nigeria and Ghana, according to UNHCR.

The UN agency and the International Red Cross have been warning that the situation in the refugee camps in Tunisia is worsening day by day as more refugees continued to arrive there, even though at a smaller rate than in the past days.

Germany, Britain and France have launched a massive evacuation by air and by sea of foreign nationals fleeing the unrest in Libya.

Three German warships yesterday picked up over 450 Egyptian migrant workers from the Tunisian port of Gabes and ferried them to the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

The German government said these warships will evacuate more than 4,000 Egyptians in the coming days.

The British government has chartered three aircraft to evacuate around 6,000 Egyptians, mostly migrant workers, who have been unable to reach home since crossing into Tunisia.

France and Spain also said they will be sending aircraft to support the evacuation.