BENGHAZI, Libya — A rescue ship packed with migrants from the besieged Libyan city of Misrata arrived Thursday at the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, as rebels received assurances in Rome of a financial-aid package from the United States and other international powers.
The chartered ferry Red Star 1 steamed into Benghazi’s port after its arrival in Misrata was delayed for days because of fears about government shelling and mines planted in the sea by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.
The vessel finally docked in Misrata on Wednesday amid shelling of a nearby camp, picked up evacuees and the wounded, then quickly shoved off into the Mediterranean en route to Benghazi, the rebels’ de facto capital where relative stability reigns.
On board the ferry were more than 800 migrants, most of them sub-Saharan African laborers, many of whom had spent a harrowing week or more in a makeshift camp in Misrata’s port. Five migrants were killed Wednesday when shells hit the camp, said witnesses.
It was the sixth and possibly the final migrant evacuation ship to make the hazardous trip to Misrata, said officials of the International Office of Migration, a Geneva-based international aid group that chartered the vessels. The group has evacuated about 6,000 people from Misrata and says most migrants stranded in the port city appear to have been rescued.
In Rome on Thursday, the U.S. and other powers opposed to Gadhafi’s regime agreed on a new fund to aid Libyan rebels. The allies also pledged to seek ways to use billions of dollars in frozen Libyan government assets abroad to assist the insurgents.
Rebel administrators in Benghazi say they will run out of money in about three weeks, leaving them without funds to pay people’s salaries, buy food and medicine and keep their enclave running.
In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who hosted the meeting of the so-called Contact Group aiding the rebels, said more than $250 million in humanitarian aid was already available for the anti-Gadhafi “transitional government.” Other donations were expected to bolster the amount.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Rome that the allies were seeking “the most effective ways to deliver financial assistance and other means of supporting” the Libyan opposition.
