Families of Egyptians stranded in Libya protested before the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday to call for intervention in evacuating their relatives from the country.
They also called on the Libyan leadership to release their relatives, saying they only went to Libya seeking work and are not involved in political activities.
Mamdouh Gomaa, a protester whose brother had been kept for almost 40 days in Misrata, said on Monday that his brother went to Misrata on 16 March to get on a ship bound for Egypt, but he and other Egyptians failed to catch it because many people were waiting for the ship.
They waited for another ship for eight days, Gomaa said. After they ran out of money, they returned to their houses on Tripoli Street.
“Qadhafi’s forces then attacked the street while they were there and arrested all the Egyptians," Gomaa said. "For this we call on the Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his daughter Aisha to release the Egyptians.”
Gomaa said his family had been in Libya for 15 years and that they enjoy good relations with the Libyans.
Sherif Hamdin Youssef, a teaching assistant at Al-Azhar University, said his brother never expected to get detained only four months after traveling to Libya for work.
“My brother was arrested on 6 March. We knew nothing about him until a medic called Abdel Khaleq was released and informed me that my brother was being held in the prison," Youssef said.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
