MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN appeals for aid to address humanitarian situation at Libyan/Tunisia border

Since the unrest begun 75.000 people fled to Tunisia and another 40.000 are waiting to cross

The UN has called for a mass humanitarian evacuation of people fleeing Libya for Tunisia, saying the border situation is at “crisis point”. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said thousands of lives were at stake. Some 75,000 people have fled to Tunisia since unrest began and 40,000 more are waiting to cross, the UN says.

The organisation has voted to suspend Libya from its Human Rights Council. Beleaguered Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has rejected calls to leave.

He has played down the unrest in the country and is trying to regain areas held by opponents of his rule in the west. The protesters have control of major towns in the east. Mr Ban said reports had suggested about 1,000 people had so far died in the Libyan unrest.

The UN High Commission for Refugees said it was urgently appealing, along with the International Organisation for Migration, for governments to engage in “a massive humanitarian evacuation of tens of thousands of Egyptians and other third country nationals”.

The groups called for governments to supply “massive financial and logistical assets... including planes, boats and expert personnel”.

“The two organisations deem this operation essential as the overcrowding at the border worsens by the hour,” they said.

More than 75,000 people have crossed the Tunisian border since 19 February, most of them Egyptians, with 70,000 more leaving Libya via the Egyptian border.

On Tuesday Tunisian guards fired into the air to try to control the crowds.

In voting to suspend Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, the resolution - passed by consensus by the UN membership - accused Libya of committing gross and systematic violations of human rights.

Mr Ban said: “These UN actions send a strong and important message - a message of great consequence within the region and beyond - that there is no impunity, that those who commit crimes against humanity will be punished, that fundamental principles of justice and accountability shall prevail.”

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said: “People who turn their guns on their own people have no place on the Human Rights Council.”