“I would say the situation in Egypt is normal. Libya, now that’s another matter,” a spokesman for a truck manufacturer told PMV over a coffee last month. “We flew our people out as soon as possible.”
It was a calm conversation and a million miles away from the chaos tearing Libya apart. As the shamal of protest that spread across North Africa last month hit the country and turned into first, a violent protest, and then a civil war, the construction machinery industry faced up to the challenge of having to react and react quickly.
It is only a matter of months ago that the industry was hailing $100 billion worth of business in Libya, with the prospect of much of it going to GCC companies or companies controlling their North African operations from offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Suddenly as the protests swept over from the eastern borders of Egypt, plans for company expansion became a panicked effort for evacuation.
Amid a chaotic few days, the infrastructure and construction that was re-building the country was in tatters, machines lay derelict and, worst still, workers, plant managers and operators were caught up in a conflict that wasn’t their own, and with many struggling to escape to safety.
According to the UN, at least 20,000 Chinese, 15,000 Turks and 1,400 Italians were evacuated from Libya by land, sea and air.
Many escaped by chartered boat to Malta, Greece and Italy, while hundreds of other foreigners, including Egyptians, Iraqis and Syrians, fled Libya into Algeria through the Sahara Desert. Despite those efforts, many migrant workers from poorer countries in South East Asia and West Africa were left stranded in Libya.
Migrante International, a support group for overseas Filipino workers, said Filipinos had been “abandoned in workers’ camps in Libya to fend for themselves that many of them by their foreign employers”.
Indian, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand and Bangladesh nationals were also stranded in the port of the eastern city of Benghazi without passports or cash, and little hope for escape.
In some cases, workers remained on sites without power or water. One Bangladeshi worker told news agency AFP that he and 17 other workers were trapped inside a desert work site after their employers had abandoned them.
“They shoot people on sight, it’s not safe to go out. We don’t have food and money. We are almost starving. Nobody can imagine how dangerous the situation is. They told us we would have to find our own way out of the country,” he said.
A total of 60,000 Bangladeshi nationals were employed in Libya before the trouble began. The Bangladesh government managed to bring home 6,000 workers but tens of thousands were left to fend for themselves.
The plight of relatives distressed many in Bangladesh and some took to the streets to demonstrate their anger at thegovernment’s handling of the crisis and to appeal for further action.
Thousands of relatives of stranded workers blocked a key highway near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka during the protest but the cash stricken government’s hands were tied, forcing it to appeal for international aid.
Foreign secretary Mijarul Quayes told the media that: “The government has contacted the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Red Cross to evacuate Bangladeshis from Libya to neighbouring countries or safe areas on Libyan borders.”
The workers that were left behind faced the enormous task of navigating their way to the country’s exit points.
Those that made it across the Sahara to the Egyptian border or the port of Benghazi arrived unsure whether they would be able to escape with their numbers overwhelming ill-prepared border crossings.
Within the first two weeks of Libya’s protests, the Egyptian authorities had received 69,000 people into the country while on Libya’s western territories Tunisia border patrols estimated 75,000 people had crossed.
With foreign workers joining fleeing Libyan refugees, for a time, it seemed the flow of humanity would never end.
The situation was made worst by the rushed nature of the evacuation and the border controls in both countries struggled to cope with the processing of refugees, many of whom travelled without passports or money. The desertion of Libya was close to becoming a full blown humanitarian crisis.
It was estimated that 10,000 migrant workers from China, Thailand, Morocco and Turkey awaited processing at the UN’s temporary centre at Ras Ajdir at any one point. And the strain showed. The Tunisian border post of Ras Ajdir guards resorted to force to prevent migrants scaling the wall that lines the Libyan border.
And yet the stream of workers continued forcing the UN’s High Commission for Refugees to rush more aid to the area, including expanding the Ras Ajdir camp of tents and makeshift accommodation so it could support 20,000 people.
Valerie Amos, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, called the situation “precarious” even as the World Health Organisation sent trauma and surgical kits, and other critical medical supplies to Libya via Benghazi.
Fortunately for the refugee workers, Amos and her team worked quickly and soon the World Food Program (WFP) was dispatching teams to the Egyptian and Tunisian borders to: “assess needs and do contingency planning for delivering food assistance to people affected by the violence inside Libya if there is a need and once the security situation allows”.
“Libya depends on food imports, and could see a potential interruption in its food supply chain due to the unrest,” she said.
While international agencies provided support, some companies found their way out of harms way thanks largely to their Libyan partners.
Jan Secher, the CEO of German plant giant Ferrostaal explained that its Libyan partners were vital in rescuing its 700 international employees. It evacuated a group consisting of employees from several different sites in the Libyan desert.
The group of 20 employees from Germany, European citizens, and 450 nationals from the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam had been working on the plant construction for national and international oil companies in Libya’s desert.
“We are very happy that we were able to evacuate all our teams from the different camps as well as from our sites in Tripoli and Brega, most of them under very difficult circumstances,” Jan Secher, Ferrostaal’s CEO said at the end of the evacuation.
“We particularly thank the teams, our customers and partners in Libya for their considerateness and their special efforts. Decisive for the success of the different activities was also the close contact to the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and the support of further administrations.”
If any good has come out of the Libyan crisis, it is the spirit of international cooperation that has demonstrated time and time again.
Daewoo rescued a 69-year-old American that was stranded in Benghazi at the befest of the US government.
Doosan Heavy was about to evacuate its employees – 60 Koreans and 208 foreigners – on a chartered Egyptian airplane and arranged the escape of some Japanese workers who were unable to leave once their embassy had closed in Libya.
Small gestures maybe, but let’s hope it’s a good omen for when Libya is ready to rebuild its future.
