Airlift to save thousands from Gaddafi terror

Two commercially chartered passenger airliners from the UK, which departed from East Midlands and Stansted airports yesterday, flew to the Tunisian town of Djerba, where they will be joined by a third plane from Italy.

The aircraft have been chartered by the UK Government to help evacuate up to 6,000 stranded people, mainly Egyptian workers who have fled over the border from Libya.

The move follows an appeal by the United Nations for an international airlift to prevent a “humanitarian crisis” in the makeshift camps where the refugees are housed.

Some 85,000 people have crossed the border so far without the means to travel on to their homes. Thousands are still sleeping in the open and some have no food or clean water.

Prime Minister David Cameron, said: “These people shouldn’t be kept in transit camps if it is possible to take them back to their home.

“We will go on doing everything that we can to ease the problems at the border and make sure this emergency doesn’t turn into a crisis.”

The Department for International Development has already flown out 36,000 blankets and tents for 1,500 people in Tunisia.

The Royal Navy’s Type 42 destroyer HMS York will also be available to assist with the relief operation.