10,000 Libyans flee to Tunisia

Some 10,000 Libyans have fled in the last 10 days from the besieged Western Mountains region to Tunisia, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Tuesday.

“This past weekend, some 6,000 Libyan nationals arrived in the Dehiba area of southern Tunisia,” said Andrej Mahecic, spokesman for UNHCR. “Overall, we estimate that 10,000 Libyans have crossed into this area over the past 10 days.”

Most of the refugees are from the town of Nalut, about 80 miles from the Tunisia/Libya border.

“They told our staff that the Western Mountains area has been effectively under siege by the government forces for a month and that the pressure on the civilian population has been increasing daily,” the UNHCR spokesman said, adding that fighting and shelling in that area has intensified significantly over the weekend.

Amid the outflow, Dehiba is now “teeming with Libyan refugees,” he said.

Most of the refugees have found shelter in local communities, while others are staying in communal buildings or camps set up by local authorities, the Red Crescent society of the United Arab Emirates as well as the UNHCR.

According to Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the conflict in Libya has so far killed 10,000 people and wounded 55,000. Mr. Frattini was citing figures compiled by the Benghazi-based opposition government.

Meanwhile the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had opened up a new humanitarian corridor in western Libya, allowing it to send in enough food to feed about 50,000 people for a month.

A convoy of eight trucks loaded with 240 metric tons of wheat flour and high-energy biscuits crossed into Libya from Tunisia on Monday, the WFP said in a statement.

“We managed to open a new humanitarian corridor into western Libya,” said the statement. “WFP is coordinating with all parties to ensure that the affected needy civilian population does not go hungry, irrespective of their area’s adherence to any of the warring factions.”

(Sara Ghasemilee of Al Arabiya can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].)