Misrata evacuee ship reaches Libyan rebel city

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - An aid ship brought nearly 1,200 evacuees to the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi late on Friday, just a fraction of those stranded in the besieged city of Misrata still desperate to escape.

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have besieged western Libya's lone rebel bastion for six weeks using rockets and other heavy weapons. Hundreds of civilians are reported to have died in the fighting.

There were likely to be at least 8,000 to 10,000 migrants who still needed to be evacuated from the city, Jeremy Haslam, an aid coordinator with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) who was on board the ship, said.

Bombardment made it impossible to get into many areas of Misrata and pressed the aid ship to leave as swiftly as it could, he said. That meant making hard choices when deciding who to bring on board.

"We threw out the textbook, basically. We couldn't get to the most vulnerable, those who need to get out fastest, because it was too dangerous," Haslam said.

Some of the migrants appeared to be so desperate to leave that aid workers feared sparking a stampede if they tried to get them out, further complicating the evacuation, he said.

Men chanted "Allahu akbar" and waved as the chartered Greek vessel, Ionian Spirit, made its way into Benghazi port. Evacuees crowded the top deck, huddling in sweatshirts and coats from the damp wind blowing from the Mediterranean.

The migrants -- largely Bangladeshis and Egyptians as well as some from Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, India and other countries -- lined up to board buses that would take them to a transit camp, after which they were due to leave for the Egyptian border.

DESPERATION

Many of the evacuees had been living in Misrata for years and some had come to Libya from other war-battered countries, making it harder to return home.

"I don't know where I'm going to go," said Ahmed Jawad, 26, an engineering student from Baghdad who had been living in Misrata for eight years.

"Iraq is dangerous now too. I'm going to stay in Benghazi for a little while and see."

Like others, he described sleepless nights spent at Misrata's port as shelling tore through the city.

"Every tyrannical country, when there's a protest, they use rubber bullets or water cannons, but here they use heavy weapons, anti-aircraft guns, live bullets.

"These weapons are supposed to be used in wars, not against civilians," he said.

Womda Hassan, a 41-year-old Sudanese woman, said she had fled the city with her two children and her husband, who had been working in a construction company there.

"A lot of people have died," she said. "It's extremely difficult there. There's no electricity, there's no water and there's shelling all the time. A lot of horrible things have happened."

One Bangladeshi worker said he had spent over two weeks sleeping near the port, eating almost exclusively bread.

The IOM has said it hoped the ship would be able to leave Benghazi for Misrata in order to carry out a second evacuation, but after that it would run out of funding. Yet the total needed, $5 million, is not huge, according to the Geneva-based agency.

Aid workers also said they will need to move quickly because many of the stranded migrants appeared to be suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and other health problems.

"Without access to clean water, good nutrition and shelter, healthcare, some of them will perish," Haslam said.

In a sign of growing desperation, even some Libyans approached aid workers to ask how much it would cost to charter an evacuation boat, he said.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)