PARIS - France is sending military transport planes and a naval landing ship to evacuate some 5,000 Egyptian workers fleeing violence in Libya within the next week, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. A ministry spokesman said the deployment formed part of a European response to calls from the UN refugee agency UNHCR and Egyptian authorities to help its nationals stranded on Libya's border with Tunisia. Some 170,000 people have fled Libya since the start of the two-week-old uprising against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, with some 75,000 of those heading toward Tunisia. Armed Forces spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said a naval amphibious landing vessel should arrive in the Mediterranean within two days, as part of the operation. Separately, two planes chartered to take medical supplies to the central hospital in the rebel-held eastern Libyan city of Benghazi had arrived in Cairo late on Tuesday and should reach their destination shortly, the ministry spokesman said. France was also seeking to provide tents and emergency supplies for displaced people inside Libya.
