The arrival of nearly 6,500 Egyptian migrants alone at the Ras
Adjir border crossing between Tunisia and Libya on Friday alone
highlighted the growing numbers of migrants and Libyans now fleeing
the violence in Libya.

An estimated 15,000 Egyptians are now stranded at this border
area awaiting evacuation help.

IOM is cranking up its efforts to evacuate by sea and air the
growing numbers of Egyptians and other Third Country Nationals who
have crossed into Tunisia.

 The Organization, which had deployed teams to Ras Adjir
since early last week to provide assistance to migrants crossing
from Libya, is beefing up its presence in order to begin
transporting Egyptian migrants to coastal areas for the sea journey
to Egypt.

Although Egyptian migrants represent the largest migrant group
crossing the Tunisian border, migrants from all different
nationalities are leaving Libya.

More than 7,800 migrants from more than 20 nationalities crossed
the Ras Adjir border point alone on Friday, with IOM staff saying
early Saturday that close to 1,000 Egyptians had already
arrived.

Meanwhile, almost one thousand Nigerien migrants have now
crossed the border from Libya into Niger in the past few days.

Nearly 500 are being sheltered and given basic humanitarian
assistance at the IOM migrant reception and transit centre in
Dirkou, about 600 kms south of the Libyan border.

The migrants say they were “let go” from a Libyan
migrant detention centre in Sebha in south-western Libya and
travelled back to Niger on trucks.

Although the majority of the migrants are in good health, albeit
exhausted, at least a dozen of them had to be taken to a military
hospital in Dirkou for severe dehydration, diarrhoea and acute
respiratory infections.

All the migrants will be taken by IOM to Agadez, the main
northern city in Niger about 700 kms from Dirkou and a major
transit point on the migration route from Sub-Saharan Africa to
Libya.

IOM staff in Niger report that another 432 Nigerien migrants are
today en route to the IOM centre in Dirkou from Manama, a military
border settlement more than 400 kms north of the town. They are due
to arrive in Dirkou on Monday 28 February. They also report that
more trucks carrying Nigerien migrants have arrived at the
Nigerien-Libyan border.

The Nigerien government has officially requested IOM to help
receive and assist not only a large number of Nigerien migrants
expected to return home, but also many other Sub-Saharan African
migrants fleeing the violence in Libya.

IOM is urgently appealing for an initial USD 11 million to
assist migrants caught out by the violence in Libya and who are in
dire need of evacuation and repatriation assistance.

The USD 11 million would allow the Organization to assist a
first group of 10,000 migrants although official requests by
several countries to IOM to evacuate and repatriate their nationals
could involve assisting at least 50,000 people.

Egypt, Bangladesh, Moldova, Montenegro, Nepal, the Philippines,
Sri Lanka and Vietnam have formally approached IOM to help their
nationals with evacuation or repatriation assistance.

For further information, please contact:

Jean Philippe Chauzy

IOM Geneva

Tel: + 41 22 717 9361

       + 41 79 285 4366

E-mail: "mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int

or

Jemini Pandya

Tel: + 41 22 717 9486

       + 41 79 217 3374

E-mail: "mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int