A ship carrying 1,138 people evacuated from the besieged Libyan city of Misrata, including dozens of wounded, has arrived in rebel-held Benghazi.
The Red Star One defied deadly shell fire to rescue African and Asian migrant workers from Misrata port yesterday, but was forced to leave behind hundreds of Libyans desperate to flee the fighting.
The International Organisation for Migration said it was initially thought that some 800 people were on board, but in total there were 1,138 passengers, including 827 migrants, mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as 311 Libyans who climbed on board.
The port is a lifeline for Misrata, where food and medical supplies are low and snipers shoot from rooftops. In all about 13,000 people have now been rescued by 13 ships.
Minesweepers from the NATO coalition, whose aircraft have been bombing Libyan government military targets under a United Nations resolution, had been searching the approaches to the harbour since Monday for a drifting Gaddafi forces' mine.
The IOM hoped to carry out a seventh evacuation mission, but this will depend on the security situation.
‘We are in discussions on how we can make sure the security conditions are better or are in place before we can carry out another mission,' a spokeswomen said.
Anti-Gaddafi coalition meets in Rome
An international coalition against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi met to seek ways of getting funds to an ill-equipped rebel movement which is fast running out of cash.
As the conflict in Libya ground into stalemate, the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) has appealed for loans of up to $3 billion to meet pressing needs including food and medicine.
The request has so far met a cautious response from Western governments, but the meeting in Rome is expected to seek ways around the legal hurdles hindering funding the rebels.
‘We'll be discussing a financial mechanism, we'll be discussing other forms of aid,’ US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a joint news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini ahead of the third meeting of the coalition, which groups more than 20 countries.
‘I will be formally announcing our non-lethal assistance so I think that there is an effort with urgency to meet the requests that the TNC is making,’ she said.
Mr Frattini said a fund called the Temporary Financial Mechanism would be established to funnel money to the TNC.
He thanked Qatar, the leading Arab supporter of the Libyan uprising, for its efforts to create the fund.
He called for other members of the coalition to join Italy and France in recognising the rebel movement and said the group must show determination to end Gaddafi's rule.
United Nations sanctions have prevented the rebels, based mainly in the eastern part of the country, from selling oil on international markets and there have been legal obstacles to accessing Libyan state assets frozen abroad.
Today’s meeting of the so-called Libya Contact Group, will bring together foreign ministers from countries including France, Britain, the United States, Italy and Qatar as well as representatives of the Arab League, African Union and United Nations.
