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27 February 2011
Last updated at 00:07 ET
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Liam Fox said efforts to evacuate Britons were not over
RAF and special forces teams are expected to continue their mission to rescue the remaining 300 or so Britons still stranded in Libyan desert camps.
Two RAF Hercules flew 150 oil workers, many of them British nationals, to the safety of Malta on Saturday.
Looters are known to operate in the territory south of Benghazi, controlled by opponents of leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, 53 Britons were among 100 on the last government-chartered flight out of Libya to Gatwick on Saturday.
The Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland is also heading back to Benghazi to help with further evacuations.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the Foreign Office had revised upwards its original estimate of the number of British oil workers still in the desert.
'No soldiers' He said many of their employers had not registered them with the embassy in Tripoli, which meant consular staff had been unaware of their whereabouts when the first protests against Col Gaddafi's regime broke out two weeks ago.
The embassy has now been temporarily closed.
Our correspondent said some of the workers will have spent "another anxious night in fear of bands of local looters" and will be looking to the UK government to repeat Saturday's successful air lift.
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He said Saturday's "complex" rescue had taken days to plan and involved several different locations.
Before the operation got the final go-ahead, British diplomats were flown out of Tripoli to Malta.
The Hercules landed on a desert strip that had been secured with the help of local militia.
Peter Dingle, from Lancashire, was among those airlifted out.
He said: "Everything was being kept quiet. We couldn't send e-mails out to any people or anything like that because obviously the media would find out that the British military was coming."
Civil engineer Tony Hooks, from Stirling, added: "We were aware of the dangers and we're just glad to get out.
"There are still people in the desert, so I can't say too much. I can't say where I came from. The guys down there are still doing an excellent job to gather all the guys together and get them evacuated."
Of the rescuers, he said: "There was the crew. There were no soldiers as such. They were not carrying any weapons, to my knowledge."
Defence Secretary Liam Fox confirmed the Hercules flights on Saturday evening, once they had arrived in Malta, and gave detail of other evacuation efforts.
"HMS Cumberland is on her way back to Benghazi to evacuate any remaining entitled persons from there," he said.
"HMS York has arrived in Valletta to take on board stores so it can assist the evacuation effort if required. And a number of other military assets remain available to support the FCO-led efforts to return civilians from Libya," he said.
The Foreign Office said the Hercules passengers had been met by a team of consular officials and Red Cross staff in Valletta, where they would be helped before returning to Britain on a government-chartered plane on Sunday or Monday.
Much of Libya, especially the east, is now controlled by anti-Gaddafi forces but the Libyan leader, who is coming under increasing pressure from the international community over his crackdown against protesters, still controls Tripoli.
The capital is home to two million of the country's 6.5 million population.
Do you have relatives who have managed to leave Libya? You can send us your experiences using the form below.
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Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.Liam Fox said efforts to evacuate Britons were not over
RAF and special forces teams are expected to continue their mission to rescue the remaining 300 or so Britons still stranded in Libyan desert camps.
Two RAF Hercules flew 150 oil workers, many of them British nationals, to the safety of Malta on Saturday.
Looters are known to operate in the territory south of Benghazi, controlled by opponents of leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, 53 Britons were among 100 on the last government-chartered flight out of Libya to Gatwick on Saturday.
The Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland is also heading back to Benghazi to help with further evacuations.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the Foreign Office had revised upwards its original estimate of the number of British oil workers still in the desert.
'No soldiers' He said many of their employers had not registered them with the embassy in Tripoli, which meant consular staff had been unaware of their whereabouts when the first protests against Col Gaddafi's regime broke out two weeks ago.
The embassy has now been temporarily closed.
Our correspondent said some of the workers will have spent "another anxious night in fear of bands of local looters" and will be looking to the UK government to repeat Saturday's successful air lift.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.He said Saturday's "complex" rescue had taken days to plan and involved several different locations.
Before the operation got the final go-ahead, British diplomats were flown out of Tripoli to Malta.
The Hercules landed on a desert strip that had been secured with the help of local militia.
Peter Dingle, from Lancashire, was among those airlifted out.
He said: "Everything was being kept quiet. We couldn't send e-mails out to any people or anything like that because obviously the media would find out that the British military was coming."
Civil engineer Tony Hooks, from Stirling, added: "We were aware of the dangers and we're just glad to get out.
"There are still people in the desert, so I can't say too much. I can't say where I came from. The guys down there are still doing an excellent job to gather all the guys together and get them evacuated."
Of the rescuers, he said: "There was the crew. There were no soldiers as such. They were not carrying any weapons, to my knowledge."
Defence Secretary Liam Fox confirmed the Hercules flights on Saturday evening, once they had arrived in Malta, and gave detail of other evacuation efforts.
"HMS Cumberland is on her way back to Benghazi to evacuate any remaining entitled persons from there," he said.
"HMS York has arrived in Valletta to take on board stores so it can assist the evacuation effort if required. And a number of other military assets remain available to support the FCO-led efforts to return civilians from Libya," he said.
The Foreign Office said the Hercules passengers had been met by a team of consular officials and Red Cross staff in Valletta, where they would be helped before returning to Britain on a government-chartered plane on Sunday or Monday.
Much of Libya, especially the east, is now controlled by anti-Gaddafi forces but the Libyan leader, who is coming under increasing pressure from the international community over his crackdown against protesters, still controls Tripoli.
The capital is home to two million of the country's 6.5 million population.
Do you have relatives who have managed to leave Libya? You can send us your experiences using the form below.
Powered By WizardRSS - Full Text RSS Feeds