By Hadi Fornaji
Tripoli, 13 July:
An Egyptian minister today warned his countrymen heading for work in Tripoli to fly to the capital . . .[restrict]from Cairo because of the roadblock at Wadi Al-Ahmar, an obstruction which the federalists insist was removed a week ago.
Rifaat Hassan, the Egyptian Minister of Manpower and Immigration has claimed that Egyptian workers travelling overland to Tripoli were sent back to Benghazi because of continuing a federalist road blockades on the coastal road to Tripoli. The minister urged Egyptian workers to fly direct from Cairo, avoiding the road journey
However, the federalists say that their roadblock was removed on 6 July. Majid Wanis, a leading federalist and son of the last prime minister before Qaddafi seized power in 1969, told Libya Herald: “Before the election, we relinquished our power in favour of the Ministry of the Interior.” He added, “Whatever forces they have there, if they have any, belong to the Ministry of the Interior.”
The blockade at Wadi Al-Ahmar, the historic border between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, was part of federalist protests about the allocation of seats for the National Conference.
On 7 June an agreement between Egypt and Libya was reached to allow 10,000 Egyptian workers into the country. Before the revolution, there were 1.5 million Egyptians working in Libya, an estimated two thirds of whom fled the country last year. [/restrict]
