More S. Koreans flee Libya on chartered plane

(ATTN: UPDATES with schedule of Korean warship in 8th para) SEOUL, Feb. 27 (Yonhap) -- Sixty more South Koreans arrived in Cairo Sunday after taking a chartered Egypt Air flight out of a central Libyan city, as Seoul continued to pull its nationals out of the African nation mired in a bloody anti-government revolt. The foreign ministry in Seoul said the flight landed in the Egyptian capital around 1:55 p.m. Sunday, Korean time, after leaving Surte, central Libya. A ministry official said the plane carried 60 South Korean construction workers for Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction and other companies, plus 208 other foreign nationals. They will either come back to South Korea or will stay in Cairo or Dubai to bide their time before returning to Libya. "Egypt Air almost canceled the flight because of the worsening situation in Libya, but our embassy in Egypt and Doosan convinced them to fly," the ministry official said. "We will keep evacuating our nationals on chartered flights or ships." Earlier Sunday, the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul said about 30 South Korean nationals fled Libya for Turkey on a Turkish military vessel. "Our military attache based in Turkey requested help from the Turkish armed forces to make the trip possible," an official with the ministry said. "We wanted to follow the government guidelines to use all means possible to pull South Koreans out of Libya." The Turkish vessel is expected to arrive at Port Marmara in southern Turkey around 3 p.m. Monday, Korean time, the official said. South Korea has also directed a 4,500-ton destroyer, Choi Young, toward Libya to help evacuate its nationals, if other means are limited. The warship, which has been operating near Somalia against piracy, is expected to reach Libyan waters later this week. "The Choi Young is scheduled to arrive in the waters off Libya around March 3. The warship will then depart the port of Benghazi on March 4 with South Korean nationals aboard for the Greek island of Crete," said another ministry official. Seoul has tried to pull its people out of Libya, as anti-government demonstrators are trying to take down Moammar Gadhafi against the Libyan leader's loyalists. On Saturday, a chartered Korean Air plane brought home 235 South Koreans. The foreign ministry said there were 427 South Koreans still remaining in Tripoli and west central Libya, and 87 others in eastern Libya, including Benghazi. "We've been telling the remaining South Koreans to leave the area," a foreign ministry official said. "If more people want to flee, then we will seek different ways to get them out, by land or by sea." Amid violent confrontations in Libya, countries such as the United States and France have shut down their embassies in the African nation. But the South Korean foreign ministry official said Seoul has not discussed closing down its missions in Libya, since there are still many South Koreans in the country. With South Koreans on the move, the country's major builders said they will soon join the evacuation. Daewoo Engineering and Construction, which employs the most South Koreans in Libya with 297, planned to hold a meeting Sunday to discuss bringing home most of those workers. "We've decided to follow the government's guidelines," a Daewoo official said. "Our construction sites remain stable at this point, and we will respond to whatever situations arise as necessary." Daewoo is operating in seven sites in Libya, including a thermoelectric power plant in Benghazi, the epicenter of the ongoing anti-government revolt. The company has so far kept most of its workers in place since their sites are largely protected. Hyundai Engineering and Construction has pulled 19 of its 170 workers from Libya and plans to take further steps to bring the rest home. According to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, 606 of 1,351 South Korean construction workers have fled Libya so far.