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A lucky few flee Libya 'nightmare'

Still stuck on the Libyan side of the border are 6000 foreign workers, who have been waiting for days to get out of a country descending into a civil war.

Smoke billows from a petrol depot that has been set ablaze following clashes between rival militias near the airport in the Libyan capital Tripoli on August 2, 2014.
Smoke billows from a petrol depot that has been set ablaze following clashes between rival militias near the airport in the Libyan capital Tripoli on August 2, 2014. (Getty)

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Baby on her shoulder, suitcase in hand, Khadija, a 34-year-old Tunisian, is rushing to escape from the "Libyan nightmare" through the Ras Jedir border crossing to reach her homeland.

With the crossing point open only intermittently because of clashes on the Libyan side, Khadija has to wait all night before being allowed through.

"Finally I'm leaving the Libyan nightmare. I'm clearing out of a country damaged by fighting. There is no future for my family," she says as she waits for her husband at the exit of passport control, open for a few hours on Saturday morning.

When Khadija arrived at Ras Jedir from Tripoli on Friday she found the crossing closed after hundreds of foreign workers tried to storm it and force their way through.

The next morning a trickle of people went through.

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About 50 Libyan-registered vehicles were granted passage, along with a smaller number of people on foot carrying their bags, before Tunisia again closed the border after just a few hours.

In a 4X4 car, with his wife and two children, 54-year-old Libyan Mohammed Badri tells how he had to wait 17 hours.

"Our priority was to leave Libya, to save our skins and find somewhere to live in Tunisia, then decide what we will do," he says, before trading dollars with young Tunisian money brokers in plain sight of unbothered police officers.

Omar Zedhi, a 27-year-old Libyan, crosses on foot and opts to take a taxi the rest of the way to Tunis.

Fed up with the instability in his country, which already went through a civil war in 2011 that overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Omar now sees Tunisia as just a staging post.

"I'm only staying a week in Tunisia and then I'll go to London. It's sad to say, but it is impossible for me now to live in Libya," says the tourism company employee.

Omar points out that at least Libyans and Tunisians are managing to flee.

Still stuck on the other side of the border are 6000 foreign workers, mostly Egyptians, who have been waiting for days.

A protest by hundreds of them on Friday spurred Libyan border guards to fire warning shots and shut the crossing for nearly 24 hours.

The Tunisian government on Friday urged its 50,000 to 80,000 nationals still in Libya to come home as quickly as possible.

But it also said it couldn't cope with taking in the many Arab and Asian people working in Libya as it did during the 2011 revolt.

Tunis will let through only foreigners whose governments guarantee immediate repatriation.


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