Watching Libya March 9, 2011

The international news agencies have concentrated their attention on developments along Libya's coastal strip where the overwhelming majority of the country's population is settled. Libya, however, has a very large territory. With an area of almost 1,800,000 square km, it is the 4th largest country in Africa, and the 17th in the world. Expatriates are employed throughout its vast interior in towns separated from the Mediterranean coast and from each other by the desert.

Filipino lecturers, for example, teach nursing and English at the local university in Sebha (population c. 130,000, around 790 km driving distance to Tripoli), the historical capital of the Fezzan region. An 800 km railway link to transport iron ore deposits from nearby Wadi Shati to the steel works and port at Misurata was planned to come onstream in 2012. The contract was awarded to China Railway Construction Corporation. Filipinos, however, are also employed in various other locations in Libya. The Manila government has announced that around 12,000 Filipinos have already been evacuated. Not all wish to leave as they fear that if they do, they might lose their jobs. Others, such as some nurses, appear to be under contractual obligation not to leave during emergency situations.

Sebha's airport (IATA code SEB, ICAO code HLLS) was recently identified by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent organisation which monitors arms trafficking for the EU, as the destination of an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft originating from a military base in the vicinity of  Baranovichi in Belarus on February 15, before the UN adopted sanctions against Libya but after the outbreak of unrest in the country. A SIPRI expert has also been quoted by the Guardian (UK) to have claimed that a Falcon 900 took off from Sebha airport to Belarus last week. Sebha is home to one of Libya's 13 air bases.

Meanwhile the Indian government has pressed into service a number of ships and airliners to bring its citizens back home. Around 2,000 Indians were expected to be flown out of Sebha and around 250 were planning to reach Benghazi overland from Kufra in the south east, the place described in popular guide books as one the world's remotest towns.Air India obtained landing rights for Tripoli to evacuate the c. 8,000 - 10,000 Indians working in the Libyan capital. Other aircraft are ferrying citizens out of Alexandria in Egypt. Indian minister of state for external affairs Parneet Kaur last week announced that all Indians wishing to leave Libya - an estimated 16,000 were still stranded there towards the end of last week - would be able to do so by tomorrow March 10. Chartered ships have already ferried Indian nationals from Benghazi to Egypt, and from Misratah to Malta. Large numbers of Indians have crossed into Tunisia.

The ancient town of Ghadames (a UNESCO World Heritage site) at the three-country border point with Tunisia and Algeria in the Berber south west was reported to be in the hands of the opposition early last week. Reports of clashes with pro-Gheddafi 'mercenaries' appear to have been confirmed by Algeria's state-owned oil and gas company Sonatrach. Reuters quoted a source at Sonatrach saying that all staff had been pulled out of Ghadames by the afternoon of Monday, February 28. The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) has an oil exploration joint venture with Sonatrach in the area, whereby NOC takes 75 percent of any production, and Sonatrach, operating a licence obtained in 2005, takes the balance. Hundreds have fled Libya into Algeria through the Ghadames border.

Another foreign company suspending operations in Libya's deep south in the past two weeks is Repsol. Only recently, the Spanish company hit oil in the Murzuq basin. The well is c. 35 km east of the El Sharara Oil Fields production facilities about 1,000 km south of Tripoli. This is the first discovery in Area 130 Block 04 under an EPSA IV agreement, awarded by NOC in 2008.

Update 14:00 (CET)

The European Union will widen sanctions against Gheddafi by targeting organizations linked to him. The EU has already imposed an arms embargo on Libya, frozen the assets of Gheddafi and close associates and barred them from travelling to Europe. Commissioner Catherine Ashton confirmed, without elaborating further, that the EU is "now in the process of adding several entities [...] to that list”. The 27 member states agreed to include a number of Libyan state entities in its sanctions list, freezing their assets in Europe. The list, which will be published Friday, is reported to include the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) which holds stakes in companies such as Pearson and UniCredit. Malta is reported to have obtained assurances that companies in Malta with Libyan state investment will be able to continue to operate.