The two Mirage F1 fighter aircraft that landed in Malta on Monday week after their pilots defected from Libya were yesterday moved to another location at the airport.
In a statement issued through the Department of Information, the Armed Forces of Malta said the move took place to facilitate operations within the Malta International Airport.
A specialist team of French civilian engineers from the jets’ manufacturing company Dassault Aviation, was earlier this week brought over to Malta to dispose of the armaments on board the fighter jets.
The aircraft had been inspected and rendered safe by a specialist team of Royal Air Force personnel purposely sent over to Malta from the UK soon after the jets landed.
Libyan Airlines resumes flights to Malta
Libyan Airlines yesterday resumed its operations from Tripoli to Malta with a flight landing in Malta in the afternoon after a week of flight cancellations.
The last Libyan Airlines flight to land in Malta since upheaval started was yesterday week.
Air Malta suspended its operations earlier this week and they have since not resumed.
A total of 75 passengers were on the flight that had been scheduled to land at 2pm. It actually arrived in Malta at 3.38pm.
Although no passenger information was available, the Libyan Ambassador to Malta Saduun Suayeh and his family disembarked from the flight. Dr Suayeh however, refused to comment about the situation in his home country or the nature of his trip.
A Libyan national who lives in Malta and who was on board the same flight said he has been trying to return for a week. He had been visiting his family in Libya when protests started and the airport was too chaotic for him to be able to return.
The town he comes from – Tahruna situated some 80 kilometres south east of Tripoli – was totally quiet, he said. But people there all want peace to resume as they were afraid of going out late during the night.
He spoke positively of the government that was helping families, the unemployed and people who needed homes by giving them money. People in Benghazi and other cities that had fallen to the rebels too were receiving money, he claimed, but it was to some extent being refused.
A young, European woman that came to Malta on board the same flight from Tripoli said she had been at Green Square and all the central places in the city. Things were very quiet.
The woman, who remained anonymous, explained she works in Libya from time to time.
She had noticed long lines of people queuing at banks and for bread but otherwise thought military presence was not heavy.
The airport was the “biggest trouble” but unlike last week, people were lined up in an organised manner.
It was no longer a “tent city” as it had been cleaned. Food and water was also being supplied.
Other than this flight, there were no extra flights arriving and leaving from Malta taking back evacuees to their home country.
Yesterday was also quiet for the Grand Harbour that was having a number of ships berthing with evacuees from Libya everyday for the past week.
Only the Korean warship Choi Young arrived at around 7am with 32 Koreans on board.
The party left for Rome before boarding a flight to Korea.
The ship will be returning to Tripoli possibly to evacuate more people in the next days.
In all, since the crisis erupted, 10,211 people arrived from Libya by sea and another 4,248 arrived by air.
PM attends extraordinary PPE meeting
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi left Malta yesterday afternoon to attend an extraordinary meeting for heads of state and governments of the European People’s Party (PPE), in Finland.
The Libyan crisis was discussed also in light of the Council of Europe extraordinary meeting next week in Brussels.
Dr Gonzi participated in the meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Council of Europe President Herman van Rompuy and the European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also attended as Hungary currently has the Council of Europe’s Presidency.
Dr Gonzi was expected to return to Malta last night.