Countries scramble to evacuate citizens from bloody unrest

GOVERNMENTS scrambled by air and sea to pick up their citizens stranded by Libya’s bloody unrest, with thousands of Turks crowding into a stadium to await evacuation and Egyptians gathering at the border to escape the chaos.

At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East’s largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli.

Britain said it was redeploying a warship, the HMS Cumberland, off the Libyan coast in readiness for a possible sea-borne evacuation of British citizens stuck in the north African country. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his country was also seeking to send a charter flight to Libya but the plane had yet to receive the necessary permission to land.