ANKARA, Turkey — Hundreds of Americans climbed aboard a ferry Wednesday to escape the turmoil in Libya, part of a vast exodus of foreigners fleeing by ship, by plane or by van. Tripoli’s airport was overwhelmed with stranded people seeking a way out.
Two Turkish ships whisked 3,000 citizens away from the chaos engulfing the North African nation as Turkey cranked up its largest-ever evacuation, seeking to protect its estimated 25,000 workers in Libya. More than 200 Turkish companies are involved in construction projects in Libya worth over $15 billion, and some construction sites have come under attack by protesters.
Over a dozen countries — including Russia, China, Germany and Ukraine — sent planes in to help their people escape an increasingly unstable situation.
“The airport was mobbed, you wouldn’t believe the number of people,” said Kathleen Burnett, of Baltimore, Ohio, as she stepped off a flight from Tripoli to Vienna. “It was total chaos.”
Irina Kuneva of Bulgaria said tensions in Tripoli were rising sharply after strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s defiant speech hinting at civil war with tribes in eastern Libya.
“He said people should either do what he tells them or there will be a civil war,” she told reporters upon arriving Wednesday in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. “People are very scared because there are many released prisoners walking drunk on the streets.”
Unease over the safety of U.S. citizens intensified after failed attempts earlier this week to get them out. But U.S. citizens climbed aboard a 600-passenger ferry at Tripoli’s As-shahab port on Wednesday afternoon for a five-hour journey to Malta, a Mediterranean island south of Italy.
Two Turkish commercial ships left the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi on Wednesday escorted by a navy frigate. They headed for Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Marmaris, where a soup kitchen and a field hospital were set up and buses were brought in to transfer the evacuees. Turkey also sent two more ships to Libya and flew 250 more Turkish citizens back home.
Turkey has now evacuated over 5,300 citizens from Libya in the last three days.
“We are carrying out the largest evacuation operation in our history,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, adding that 21 countries other countries have asked Turkey to evacuate their citizens too.
Migrants were also pouring across Libya’s land borders with Egypt and Tunisia on Wednesday. Vans piled high with luggage and furniture lined up at the Salloum border crossing with Egypt.
Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the U.N. migration agency, said thousands of migrants were fleeing Libya.
Libyan leader Gadhafi has urged his supporters to strike back against Libyan pro-democracy protesters, escalating a crackdown that has led to widespread shooting in the streets. Nearly 300 people have been killed in the nationwide wave of anti-government protests — and possibly many more.
Libya is one of the world’s biggest oil producers — responsible for nearly 2 percent of the world’s oil — and many oil companies were evacuating their expatriate workers and families.
China was also gearing up for a massive evacuation. There are reportedly 30,000 or more Chinese workers in Libya building railways and other infrastructure and providing oilfield services. Greece was tapped to help evacuate around 13,000 Chinese workers to Crete by ship.
China’s first chartered evacuation flight left for Libya on Wednesday.
Chinese media reports said a site run by China’s Huafeng Construction Co., Ltd. in eastern Libya was attacked by armed looters over the weekend who stole computers and other equipment and forced nearly 1,000 Chinese workers out of their dorms.
Arriving at Madrid’s Barajas airport on a nearly empty Libyan Airlines plane, Venezuelan oil engineer Cesar Orta said he never witnessed violence but heard it.
“You could hear gunshots or fireworks and hear people shouting. I wasn’t afraid, but I never left my house at night,” he said, adding that Tripoli was generally pro-Gadhafi.
Orta said the worst inconvenience was the intermittent Internet service and no working telephones, as well as not being able to understand Arabic-language television to know what was going on.
Carlos Dominguez, another passenger, said conditions were chaotic at Tripoli’s airport, where people could not buy tickets online and Libyan Airlines was accepting only cash.
“The doors are locked and you can only get in if you have a ticket,” he said. Outside it are swarms of Egyptians who lived and worked in Libya and are now trying desperately to get home.
He described them as “lying on the sidewalks with blankets and children” and all their belongings, even television sets. “The army treats them very badly,” he added.
Orta said Libyans he had talked to think the unrest will die down in a week or so.
“They say things will be OK and that Gadhafi will sort things out,” Orta said.
Dominguez, who worked as an architectural consultant in Tripoli, said the Libyans he knows were furious with the international community for its hands-off approach.
“People are very angry with the international attitude,” he said.
Evacuation planes from Libya spread out across Europe.
The first planeload of evacuated Russians landed in Moscow, bringing 118 people. Three more planes were expected. A ship was also setting sail for Ras Lanuf, the site of Libya’s largest refinery and port, to evacuate up to 1,000 Russians, Turks, Serbs and Montenegrins there.
Two French military planes evacuated nearly 400 foreigners to Paris from Libya, and a third plane was en route from France. Two Bulgarian planes returned Wednesday from Tripoli with nearly 200 passengers.
Britain sent a warship, the HMS Cumberland, to anchor off the Libyan coast for a possible sea-borne evacuation of British citizens.
Hundreds of Italians took Alitalia flights from Tripoli home, and an Italian air force plane landed Wednesday to evacuate others. Two Italian naval vessels headed to eastern Libyan ports to rescue citizens from Benghazi, Misurata, and other cities where airports had been damaged by the government.
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