BRAZIL: Brazilian woman urges her government to do more to bring home nationals stranded by Libyan violence

Record ID: 1525787

  • Title: BRAZIL: Brazilian woman urges her government to do more to bring home nationals stranded by Libyan violence
  • Date: 24th February 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF PHOTOS OF HANSEN WITH HER FATHER WHO LIVES IN BENGHAZI, ROBERTO MOREIRA, AND HER YOUNGER BROTHER
  • Embargoed: 12th March 2011 08:53
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil, Brazil
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABTDI1USI3SJEZLRV6EFT9EEIE
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: For the past week Brazilian journalist Mariana Hansen has take time away from work to focus on getting her family out of Libya .
    Her brothers and father have been stranded in the city of Benghazi since the Libyan launched a crackdown on anti-government protests. Witnesses have decsribed scenes of chaos as foreigner tried to escape the violence.
    Hansen, a 27-year-old reporter, has turned to social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to demand more help from the Brazilian government in evacuating its nationals - including her father, Roberto Moreira, who works at a construction firm.
    Brazilian officials announced on Tuesday (February 23) that they were sending a ship to pick up some 180 citizens from Benghazi, the country's second-largest city.
    Like Hansen, hundreds of other Brazilian families have complained about the Brazilian government's slow evacuation efforts.
    Most countries have managed to get their citizens out of Benghazi and Tripoli using planes, ships and buses.
    "What has been done is not satisfactory; after all, my family is still stuck in a house since the 16th. On Sunday, in a failed attempt to leave the country, they ended up going to another house which belongs to a Brazilian along with all Brazilian employees from Queiroz Galvao (construction firm) who have families. The other employees are in a hotel nearby and they are all gathered there, waiting, waiting for the foreign ministry to do something. They know the company they work for already did their part, but what did the foreign ministry do," she said.
    People in Western Libya, which is still under the control of Muammar Gaddafi, have said they were too afraid of pro-government militia to go out after he threatened violence against protesters in a speech on Tuesday night.
    As many as 1,000 people have been killed in since the revolt began around a week ago.
    Hansen said she is scared that a new wave of violence could block her family from leaving the country on Thursday. On Wednesday, a Libyan air force plan crashed near Benghazi after its crew bailed out because they refused to carry out orders to bomb the city.
    "I'm afraid my family will not be able to leave in time. I'm afraid Gaddafi will invade Benghazi, open fire against the population and bomb the city and that in the middle of the chaos there will be no time to explain they are Brazilian. But, on second thoughts, after Gaddafi's son said it was the foreigners, the idle and the drunks who had put the population against him, being a foreigner might not help much," she said.
    A statement by the foreign ministry said Brazilians in Tripoli were managing to leave the country through the airport.
    Hansen said she has been praying and trying to keep her hopes up.
    "We feel powerless because there is nothing we can do. All we can do is have hope, pray and wait. I think the worst part is waiting and the anguish. One hour seems like an entire day. The hours go by slowly, the phone doesn't ring, and we feel powerless," she said.
    Protests in Libya's neighbors Egypt and Tunisia have ousted entrenched leaders, but Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969 and has ruled the mainly desert country with a mixture of populism and tight control, is still fighting back.
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