LONDON — British military planes entered Libyan air space in a daring rescue of more than 150 people, many of them oil workers, from desert locations, officials said Saturday.
The C-130 Hercules planes, carrying Britons and other nationals, safely landed in Malta after picking up the civilians from desert locations south of Benghazi, Defense Secretary Liam Fox said.
The rescue mission was bold because few planes have been able to fly through Libyan air space. It was not immediately clear if it was a British special forces mission, but the SAS has been on stand by for an evacuation mission of those stuck in oil fields, according to U.K. media reports.
“I can confirm that two RAF C-130 Hercules aircraft have evacuated more than 150 civilians from desert locations south of Benghazi,” Fox said.
He added that the frigate HMS Cumberland was returning to Benghazi from Malta to evacuate any remaining “entitled persons” from there.
Fox made the announcement as the U.N. Security Council met in an urgent session to consider sanctions to punish Libya for violent attacks against anti-government protesters.
One of those who was rescued said the military plane he boarded in Libya was initially supposed to carry around 65 people, but quickly grew to more than double that.
“It was very cramped but we were just glad to be out of there and getting on the flight,” Patrick Eyles, a 43-year-old Briton who arrived on one of the C-130s, said at Malta International Airport.
Britain has been among the countries pushing for tougher sanctions, including an arms embargo and travel ban on Gadhafi, who is under pressure by the international community to halt the crackdown on his people.
Other Britons returning to London from Libya after being evacuated from Libya spoke of the chaos enveloping the North African country.
“Gangs of young Libyans had knives and machetes,” said 51-year-old Paul Ellis, who works on the Great Man-Made River Project in Libya. “What they wanted was any valuables — money, laptops and mobiles. We just gave them those and the keys to cars and they just left us alone to some extent.” Mediterranean ports, meanwhile, overflowed with thousands of evacuees from Libya, and thousands more foreigners were still scrambling to flee the North African nation by sea, air or land as the security situation around the capital Tripoli deteriorated.
More than 2,800 Chinese workers landed in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete aboard a Greek ship. Further to the west, another 2,200 Chinese arrived in Valletta, the capital of Malta, after a long journey from the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi.
Hours earlier, in the dark of night, a U.S-chartered ferry dropped off over 300 passengers in Valletta who spent three days waiting to leave Libya’s chaotic capital.
The sheer numbers of foreigners leaving Libya as Gadhafi’s regime attacks anti-government protesters has been staggering. As of Saturday, at least 16,000 Chinese, 15,000 Turks and 1,400 Italians had been evacuated, most working in the construction and oil industries.
In addition, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council that some 22,000 people have fled across the Libyan border to Tunisia and another 15,000 crossed the border into Egypt.
— Mark D. Colson in Luqa, Malta contributed to this report.
