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Migrants Fleeing Violence in Libya Begin Arriving in Tunisia

IOM staff at Tunisia's border with Libya report that migrants have begun to cross into Tunisia in efforts to escape the violence in the North African country and to get back to their home countries.

Although most of the arrivals have largely been of Tunisian nationals, migrants of various nationalities have been crossing the border into Tunisia's Medenine Governorate requesting assistance to go back home.

An IOM staffer says local Red Crescent officials reported to him and a UNHCR official on Tuesday that in addition to several thousand returning Tunisians, there were some Lebanese, Turkish, Syrian and three German nationals who had arrived asking for onward travel assistance.

The local authorities provided transport for the migrants to Djerba international airport from where they were reportedly able to depart to their home countries.

With further arrivals in the evening across the Ben Guerdane border post, IOM staff identified low-cost hotel accommodation for the migrants of various nationalities, including four Guineans asking for help to get home, until onward travel assistance could be organized.

Additional IOM staff will be deployed to the border area today to help migrants arriving from Libya.

Meanwhile, several governments have asked IOM for assistance to evacuate their nationals from Libya. With the situation in Libya itself extremely difficult, IOM is looking at alternative routes for evacuations.

Libya, both a long-favoured destination as well as transit country in Africa, has an estimated 1.5 million irregular migrants in the country alone. Although a significant number are from Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, West Africa and the Horn of Africa, there are also migrants from other parts of the world including Asia. Among them are Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Chinese.

The Organization, however, is appealing to donors to help fund such humanitarian assistance as they have in the past, the most recent case being the Lebanon crisis in 2006 when IOM evacuated more than 13,000 third country nationals to their home countries, including Sri Lanka, Philippines and Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, another 235 Tunisian migrants have arrived on Lampedusa on two boats since the last arrival on Tuesday morning, according to IOM staff there.

A Tunisian fishing boat carrying nearly 200 people arrived late in the evening despite appalling weather and sea conditions. Among them were three women accompanied by their husbands with two of the women heavily pregnant.

IOM staff say the women were in a state of shock due to the extremely difficult and dangerous journey they had just endured. They and their husbands are staying in the IOM office in the migrant reception centre on the island.

Family reunification is increasingly evident as a reason as to why the Tunisians are leaving for Europe.

An Italian fishing boat that had rescued 37 Tunisians at sea finally managed to land on Lampedusa this morning after several failed attempts due to bad weather.

IOM staff say that if the migrants hadn't been rescued by the Italian fishing boat, they would have certainly died at sea.

For further information, please contact Jean Philippe Chauzy, IOM Geneva, Tel: + 41 22 717 9361/+41 79 285 4366 Email: pchauzy@iom.int or Jemini Pandya Tel: + 41 22 717 9486/+ 41 79 217 3374 Email: jpandya@iom.int