T

he Indonesian government began evacuating 260 Indonesians on Friday evening local time from Libya to Tunisia, following the uprising in the North African country.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kusuma Habir said Friday that the first batch of evacuees would include 201 workers from state construction firm Wika, three workers from state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina and a number of Indonesian students and domestic workers.

“The first phase of evacuation will be done Friday evening local time using a Tunisair plane heading to Tunis,” she told The Jakarta Post.

“The estimated time of arrival [of that batch] in Tunis is around 7 p.m. local time [1 a.m. Saturday Jakarta time].”

All the evacuees will be sheltered in the Indonesian Embassy, the residence of the Indonesian ambassador to Tunisia and embassy staff houses while in Tunis, she said.

All Wika employees will be staying in Tunis for three days before returning to Indonesia, according to Kusuma.

The costs incurred in the evacuation of Wika workers will be covered by both the government and the company, with details yet to be made available, she said.

“But all the students will be staying in Tunis until the situation in Libya improves,” she said.

Pertamina spokesperson Mochamad Harun told the Post on Friday that the company had initially rented a private jet to evacuate its workers from Libya.

“Unfortunately, the plane didn’t get approval to land in Tripoli,” he said in a telephone interview.

“[Therefore] Pertamina workers will [leave Libya] for Tunisia along with other Indonesians [evacuated by the government].”

Harun said Pertamina workers would immediately return to Indonesia from Tunis, but the details had yet to be worked out.

The project director of Indonesia’s largest private oil and gas producer PT Medco Energi Internasional, Lukman Mahfoedz, said all Indonesian workers at its subsidiary company Medco International Venture Limited, which operated in Libya, had left Libya for Indonesia as soon as its drilling operations were completed.

They were all workers involved in Medco International Venture Limited’s drilling activities.

Kusuma said a team of four ministry officials would leave Jakarta on Friday evening for Tripoli for further evacuation arrangements.

She said the government was planning at least three lots of evacuation for Indonesians in Libya.

“There’s a possibility that the next phase of evacuation will have Indonesian citizens transported to Jordan if no more space is available in Tunis,” she said, adding that no decision had been made so far.

The turmoil in Libya, inspired by successful revolutions in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, has claimed at least 1,000 people’s lives in an attempt to oust President Moammar Qaddafi, Reuters reported.

It has also caused particular global concern because Libya supplies 2 percent of the world’s oil, the bulk of it from well and supply terminals in the east, it reported.