THE AIR Corps is to try to evacuate Irish citizens from Tripoli today after a failed attempt on Wednesday night.
A six-person emergency civil assistance team led by Ireland’s Ambassador to Rome, Pat Hennessy, flew to Valetta in Malta last night.
They planned to fly into Tripoli on a commercial airline this morning with visas supplied by the Libyan embassy in London to prepare the way for the Air Corps CASA aircraft.
Some 31 Irish citizens were still in Tripoli last night, the Department of Foreign Affairs said, and there were another 12 in Benghazi and six others in the desert.
It is expected those in Benghazi will leave by boat organised in partnership with other EU countries and those in the desert are expected to drive across the border or make their way to Tripoli.
While Tripoli remained largely locked down yesterday, pro-Gadafy militiamen and African mercenaries raided homes, making arrests, and took bodies from hospital morgues.
However, Col Gadafy’s hold on cities and towns around the capital came under challenge, with disturbances and protests reported in many areas. The southern oil fields were reported to be under rebel control.
The Air Corps’ 25-seater CASA landed at Tripoli airport on Wednesday night, but officers on board were not allowed to disembark or make contact with the Irish waiting in the terminal.
Irish people had been gathering in the terminal from early morning in anticipation of the flight. At one stage, they boarded a bus and went out on to the tarmac to find the aircraft after British foreign office representatives told them it was waiting, but it had already left.
At a press briefing yesterday, Peadar Carpenter, co-ordinator of the emergency crisis centre in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, said the officers did not have pre-entry clearance when they landed and were unable to negotiate visas. They were not allowed to use phones, he said, and could not contact anyone.
“They stayed there for four or five hours trying to negotiate and to see if they could get any change, but despite all their best efforts they could not get agreement to even go into the airport terminal to talk to our citizens,” Mr Carpenter said.
What had happened was “very, very regretful”, he said. The problem was that Ireland did not have a presence on the ground in Libya.
Secretary general of the department David Cooney complimented his staff’s hard work and said he was very pleased with how they had approached the crisis.
When there was no embassy on the ground, they couldn’t be there “to hold people’s hands”, he said. “The best advice we can give them is to try to get out on a commercial flight and be careful.”
