The large numbers of people trying to escape from Libya since the rebellion there first broke out in mid-February have had relief agencies scrambling to assess and assist. More than 300,000 people fled the country in the first four weeks alone and some reports claimed a further 600,000 were trying to escape but were trapped.
“This is one of the biggest humanitarian evacuations in history,” said the Director General of the International Organization of Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing. During the first weeks of the crisis, both the IOM and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) succeeded in evacuating 50,000 migrants stranded at the Tunisian and Egyptian borders, while tens of thousands of others were taken home by ships and aircraft sent by various governments.
In late March, the IOM estimated that over 1 million foreign migrant workers remained in Libya, many of them from Sub-Saharan Africa. Thousands, mainly Nigerians, had begun to arrive over the border in Niger while thousands more were stranded in the southern Libyan town of Sabha.
