Thirty-eight more Vietnamese workers in the coastal city of Misrata, in northwestern Libya, have been evacuated to Tunisia, pending repatriation to Vietnam, to avoid armed conflict, according to a mission of the Vietnamese labor ministry.

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The workers were safely moved to Tunisia via the Ras Adjir border gate on Tuesday, said Nguyen Duc Nam, head of a working group of the Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA), which has been sent to Libya to support the efforts to bring home Vietnamese workers over security concerns. This group of workers had been dispatched to Libya under a contract between Hanoi-based International Manpower Supply and Trade Co., Ltd. (SONA), a Vietnamese company, and its Libyan partner, Misrata General Construction Company (GCCM).    The two companies helped the 38 workers with customs procedures and travel arrangements to Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia, where they will wait for their flights back to Vietnam. SONA said that another 46 Vietnamese workers who are working for Libya’s SAMA Construction Company are scheduled to be evacuated from Tunisia on Wednesday, September 3, under an arrangement between SONA and SAMA.

As of Tuesday, 222 Vietnamese nationals were still working in Libya, and they will also be taken to Vietnam in the near future, said Vietnamese Ambassador to Libya, Dao Duy Tien.

These employees work on construction sites in Misrata City, Brega City, Nalut Province, and Ghadamis, an oasis town. In mid-July 2014, Vietnam had 1,750 workers in Libya, but more than 1,500 of them have been evacuated due to the escalating conflict there, according to MOLISA. The ministry also said Vietnamese citizens in Libya can contact the Vietnamese Embassy via the hotlines +0084 918370497 and +0084 948948458 for help in emergency cases. Vietnamese agencies successfully returned 10,000 Vietnamese workers to their home country from Libya in March 2011, when the country fell into serious political instability.

The sending of Vietnamese workers to Libya was halted until July 2012, when MOLISA allowed labor exporters to resume their supply of labor to the North African country. Libya is the only country in Africa that has signed a labor cooperation contract with Vietnam, the ministry said.

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