By the end of February 2011, medical supplies, fuel and food were dangerously low in Libya. On 25 February, the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

launched an emergency appeal for to meet the emergency needs of people affected by the violent unrest in Libya. On 2 March, the ICRC's director general reminded everyone taking part in the violence that health workers must be allowed to do their jobs safely. At the end of February, Al Jazeera reported that African migrant workers were being attacked, injured and perhaps killed by anti-government mobs according to witnesses. "We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people," Julius Kiluu, a sixty-year-old building supervisor, told Reuters. "Our camp was burnt down, and we were assisted by the Kenyan embassy and our company to get to the airport," he said. On 2 March, the

British Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fra ...

destroyer HMS ''York'' arrived in Benghazi carrying medical supplies and other humanitarian aid donated by the Swedish government. The medical supplies, a donation to the Benghazi Medical Centre, were supposed to have been flown direct to Benghazi airport but when the airport was closed down, they were diverted to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. They were transferred from the airport to the frigate at short notice by the Maltese Armed Forces. On 8 March, a convoy of trucks from the UN

World Food Programme The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен� ...

(WFP) had entered Libya and was due to arrive in the eastern port city of Benghazi on the same day, the WFP said in a statement. A convoy carrying seventy metric tonnes of high-energy date bars crossed the Egyptian border overnight on its way to the eastern port. On 7 March, U.N. aid coordinator

Valerie Amos Valerie Ann Amos, Baroness Amos, (born 13 March 1954) is a British Labour Party politician and diplomat who served as the eighth UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Before her appointment to ...

stated that fighting across Libya meant that more than a million people fleeing or inside the country needed humanitarian aid. The

Islamic Relief Islamic Relief Worldwide is a faith-inspired humanitarian and development agency which is working to support and empower the world’s most vulnerable people. Founded in the United Kingdom in 1984, Islamic Relief has international headquarter ...

and the WFP also coordinated a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Misrata.Staff.
''OCHA on Libya's Refugees Covering the Period of 10 to 12 April''
( PDF). UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (via

ReliefWeb ReliefWeb is a humanitarian information portal founded in 1996. The portal now hosts more than 720,000 humanitarian situation reports, press releases, evaluations, guidelines, assessments, maps and infographics. The portal is an independent veh ...

). Retrieved 18 April 2011 Selling water in tripoli

Turkey sent the ferry ''Ankara'', which had been converted into a hospital ship, to assist wounded victims of the fighting in Misrata. The ferry docked at the Misrata port on 2 April, and was escorted by twelve

Turkish Air Force The Turkish Air Force ( tr, ) is the aerial warfare service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. The Turkish Air Force can trace its origins back to June 1911 when it was founded by the Ottoman Empire, however, the air force as it is known to ...

F-16 jets taking off from

Bandırma Bandırma () is a city in northwestern Turkey with 161,894 inhabitants as of 2021 on the Sea of Marmara. Bandırma is a district of Balıkesir Province. Bandırma is located in the south of the Marmara Sea, in the bay with the same name, and is ...

and

Dalaman Dalaman is a district, as well as the central town of that district, situated on the southwestern coast of Turkey, in the Muğla Province. Dalaman Stream (''Dalaman çayı'') forms much of the western border of the district, where its neighbo ...

, four tanker aircraft taking off from

İncirlik ) , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , nickname = , motto = , image_map = , map_alt = , map_caption = , pu ...

, and the

Turkish Navy The Turkish Naval Forces ( tr, ), or Turkish Navy ( tr, ) is the naval warfare service branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. The modern naval traditions and customs of the Turkish Navy can be traced back to 10 July 1920, when it was establis ...

frigate TCG ''Yıldırım''. After 230 wounded people and 60 attendants were taken on board, the ferry left Misrata for Benghazi. On 4 April, the ferry sailed from Benghazi to Turkey with additional 190 people, including 90 injured. The IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation sent a cargo ship carrying nine containers with 141 tons of humanitarian aid including medication, food packages, infant formula, milk powder, hygiene kits and clothing. The ship set sail from Turkey and dropped anchor in Malta. By 11 April, hundreds of foreign labourers from countries including

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

, Egypt, Ghana,

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesChad and 2,000 from Niger. Another spokesperson also gave a ''Daily Telegraph'' reporter handwritten sheets of names that he said represented hundreds of stranded Sudanese. For over fifty days, Misrata was shelled by artillery and hit by tanks and snipers, and for over twenty days had its water intentionally shut off by Gaddafi forces. Sewage was intentionally re-routed into water wells by Gaddafi forces. As supplies ran short, hundreds of thousands were at risk of death. Human rights groups have contributed extensive evidence documenting human rights abuses during the Libyan conflict. In August 2011,

Physicians for Human Rights Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New ...

published a report on Misrata documenting severe violations of human rights and evidence of war crimes including torture, summary execution, rape as a weapon of war,

forced disappearance An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a State (polity), state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or po ...

s, using civilians as human shields, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and violations of medical neutrality. In December 2011, PHR released another report documenting evidence of a massacre at a warehouse in Tripoli in which soldiers of Khamis Qaddafi's 32nd Brigade unlawfully detained, raped, tortured and executed at least 53 detainees. PHR's investigation and resulting report provided the first comprehensive account of the 32nd Brigade massacre, and provided forensic evidence needed to secure accountability for crimes according to international legal standards. A humanitarian ship docked in harbour of Misrata late on 14 April to begin the evacuation of nearly 8,300 stranded migrants living around the port in temporary accommodation in tents and shelters made from tarpaulins. The Red Cross also released a statement that it expected one of its medical supply shipments to arrive at Misrata in the near future. On 11 May,

Polish Foreign Minister The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (''Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych'', MSZ) is the Polish government department tasked with maintaining Poland's international relations and coordinating its participation in international and regional supra-natio ...

Radoslaw Sikorski paid a visit to Benghazi, during which the

Polish government The Government of Poland takes the form of a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. However, its form of government has also been id ...

provided its medical-aid transport for those who sustained injuries during the clashes in Misrata and other Libyan cities.

Plight of migrant workers in Libya

A major destination country in North Africa, migrants in Libya constituted 10.5 percent of the total Libyan population in 2010."Egyptian Migrants in Libya Facts and Figures, 24 March 2011"

. Economic migrants in Libya came from a wide range of countries of origin. In the past, most migrants came from Arab countries, mainly Egypt and Tunisia, but the last decade had seen more sub-Saharan African migrants as a result of more-relaxed open-border policies for southern countries. According to the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

, in 2009 migrant workers sent home an estimated US$1 billion in remittances, ''i.e.'', 1.7 percent of Libya's GDP. Migrants were trying to escape the Libyan crisis as violence continued to escalate in the country. When migrants started to exit the country for the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, the

International Organization for Migration The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations agency that provides services and advice concerning migration to governments and migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers. The IOM w ...

(IOM) began immediate evacuation operations for stranded migrants at international borders. Migrants received humanitarian assistance, including medical services from IOM, as well as immediate repatriation in coordination with their respective governments to their countries of origin within a window of five to seven days. The operational border points were at Sallum, Egypt; Ras Ajdir into Tunisia; Dirkou, Niger; and Faya, Chad. As of 10 July, the cross-border movement for

Third Country National Third country national (TCN) is a term often used in the context of migration, referring to individuals who are in transit and/or applying for visas in countries that are not their country of origin (i.e. country of transit), in order to go to a d ...

s (TCN) reached over 290,000 persons. In the context of the Libya crisis, TCNs comprised migrants who crossed the border from Libya to a country that was not their country of origin. As of 10 July, IOM had evacuated over 150,000 migrants to their countries of origin by plane, ship and international buses. Libya's third-largest city, Misrata had been the rebel's main stronghold in the west and was under constant artillery fire by pro-Gaddafi forces. There was a pressing need for evacuations given the large number of critically ill migrants who were caught in the artillery cross fire and were trapped in Misrata. The IOM chartered ships from Misrata to Benghazi, a city in the rebel-held east to evacuate wounded migrants. The ships had on-board field hospitals run by LibAid that included a ful intensive-care unit for head-trauma injuries caused by

shrapnel Shrapnel may refer to: Military * Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use * Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material Popular culture * ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics) * ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam C ...

from the artillery shelling. Since mid-April, the IOM rescued over 7,500 people in ten sea evacuations. Once in Benghazi, the migrants were taken to Sallum, Egypt, by road and continued to be assisted by the IOM in returning to their country of origin. Migrants were also stranded elsewhere in Libya, such as in the southern towns of Sebha and Gatroum. Of the two thousand Chadian migrants who were trapped in Sabha and Qatrun, nearly forty percent were women, children and the elderly who had been living under difficult conditions in the open southern

Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the north-eastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates t ...

. Evacuations by air organized by the IOM began early July. Whilst waiting for evacuation, Chadians were provided with food, water, hygiene materials and medical assistance by the IOM and the Libyan Red Crescent.

References

{{2011 Libyan civil war First Libyan Civil War