Group told ‘book tickets online’

A GROUP of Irish teachers trying to exit Libya were told by the Irish Embassy in Rome to book airline tickets online, even though the internet has been virtually unaccessible since last Friday.

Speaking from her home in Wexford last night, Deirdre Twomey, who is in her 20s, said she felt they received “very little assistance” from the embassy as they tried to find a way out of the chaos currently engulfing the country.

She said an embassy official told them to use their “common sense” to get to the airport in Tripoli.

“We were told on the other end that we needed to go online and book flights and book a ticket which is not possible in Libya, it has never been possible. It is something that’s happening because of the unrest.

“You must go to a travel agent and of course all travel agents were closed and it was unsafe for us to go out onto the streets. So we were told to book a ticket online and to use our common sense to get us to the airport,” Deirdre said.

The party of seven — four women and three men — did eventually make it to the airport, but initially, the men were refused entry to the terminal.

“We arrived early in the morning, about 8.30. We waited two hours. There were hundreds, increasing to thousands, joining the — and I won’t even say queue — the throngs and crowds trying to get inside the building.

“There were three men and four women in our group, they let the four women in and refused to let the men in. So the women were inside and once we got in we managed to locate — find by chance — this German pilot who told us he had 55 seats on his plane and that we needed to get out within two hours because they were shutting down the airspace. He said he would keep seven seats for us but that we needed to get the three guys from outside inside the terminal building,” Deirdre said.

Fortunately the entire party made it on the aeroplane and to safety. Last night Deirdre told RTÉ News that “We were very blessed and very lucky that day.”

Last night the Department of Foreign Affairs said it had been working closely with its EU counterparts to ensure Irish passport holders were given spaces on commercial flights out of the country.

A six-member emergency civil assistance team (Ecat) is also being deployed.

David Cooney, secretary general, admitted not having an embassy and diplomats in Tripoli had hampered evacuation efforts.