UN urges mass Libyan evacuation - INVASION IMMINENT!

The UN has called for a mass humanitarian evacuation of people fleeing Libya for Tunisia, saying the border situation is at "crisis point".

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said thousands of lives were at stake. Some 75,000 people have fled to Tunisia since unrest began and 40,000 more are waiting to cross, the UN says.

The organisation has voted to suspend Libya from its Human Rights Council.

Beleaguered Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has rejected calls to leave.

He has played down the unrest in the country and is trying to regain areas held by opponents of his rule in the west. The protesters have control of major towns in the east.

Mr Ban said reports had suggested about 1,000 people had so far died in the Libyan unrest.
'Strong message'

The UN High Commission for Refugees said it was urgently appealing, along with the International Organisation for Migration, for governments to engage in "a massive humanitarian evacuation of tens of thousands of Egyptians and other third country nationals".

More than 75,000 people have crossed the Tunisian border since 19 February, most of them Egyptians, with 70,000 more leaving Libya via the Egyptian border.