Hundreds of Vietnamese workers are returning to Vietnam from Libya, where unrest is escalating, for safety reasons, a Vietnamese labor exporting company has said.

>> Ministry sets up plan to protect Vietnamese workers in Libya >> Heavy fighting breaks out near Libya's Tripoli airport, seven dead >> Libyan court says PM's election invalid, raising hopes of end to stalemate >> Vietnam to send workers to Libya again

Nguyen Duc Nam, deputy general director of the International Manpower Supply and Trade Company (Sona), under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), said that 79 of the 206 workers his company sent to Libya returned to Vietnam on July 29.

The remaining workers will continue coming back to Vietnam, Nam said, adding that the last among these workers will arrive in their home country on Saturday, August 2, at the latest.

The 206 laborers worked for a project developed by a Turkish contractor in South Korea near the area where violence has been escalating over the past several days, especially in Tripoli and Benghazi. On July 26, when this contractor was withdrawing its staff from Libya at the recommendation of the Turkish administration, it also brought the 206 Vietnamese workers back to Turkey. Three days later, the contractor arranged for 79 of these Vietnamese workers to return to Vietnam first, Sona said. Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, head of the MOLISA’s Department of Overseas Labor Management (Dolab), told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday that 14 businesses have sent about 1,750 Vietnamese workers to Libya, of whom 211 are in Tripoli, 686 in Misrata, 528 in Al Qubbah, and the remaining in various other locations. Dolab is coordinating with the Vietnamese Embassy, the company that sent these workers to Libya and their employer in the African country to protect them, move them out of the dangerous area and repatriate them to Vietnam, Quynh said. On Wednesday, the labor ministry submitted a report to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung regarding their plans to ensure the safety of Vietnamese workers in Libya and their evacuation from the North African country when necessary, the official said.

The Vietnamese premier directed all concerned agencies to closely coordinate with each other in implementing these plans to protect Vietnamese workers in Libya, he added.   In February 2011, more than 10,000 Vietnamese workers were evacuated from Libya and sent back to Vietnam to avoid the political unrest at that time. Vietnamese workers were not allowed to go to Libya until July 2012, when the MOLISA permitted labor exporters to resume their supply of laborers to Libya, the only country in Africa that has signed a labor cooperation contract with Vietnam.

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