U.S. starts evacuations as Egypt unrest spreads

By Laura Bly, USA TODAY

The U.S. State Department says it will evacuate about 1,200 Americans from Egypt today, and another 1,000 on Tuesday - a reflection of escalating concern surrounding week-long protests against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.

A soldier stands guard in front of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Sunday, Jan. 30.

CAPTION

By Ahmed Ali, AP

According to the Associated Press, a U.S. military plane landed at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus on Monday afternoon ferrying 42 U.S. Embassy officials and their dependents from Egypt. The U.S. Embassy in Nicosia said at least one more plane was expected Monday with about 180 people — most of them U.S. citizens. Two more flights, carrying about 177 passengers each, left Cairo for Athens, says the New York Times.

At Cairo's airport, the AP reports, shouting matches and fist-fights broke out among passengers cramming into Terminal 3 seeking flights home. "In an attempt to reduce tensions, the airport's departures board stopped announcing flight times — but the move simply fueled anger over canceled or delayed flights," the AP said. "Making matters worse, check-in counters were poorly staffed because many EgyptAir employees had been unable to get to work due to a 3 p.m. to 8 a.m. curfew and traffic breakdowns across the Egyptian capital."

An updated travel warning, issued Sunday, urges Americans to leave "as soon as they can safely do so." It notes that while demonstrations in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities have not been directed against Westerners, Americans should stay in their hotels or homes until the situation stabilizes. Many airlines - including EgyptAir and Delta, which fly between New York and Cairo - have curtailed or suspended Cairo flights indefinitely.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo said it would offer voluntary evacuations to "safehaven locations in Europe" - including Istanbul, Athens, and Nicosia, Cyprus - starting today. The embassy's Twitter feed said Americans wishing to leave Egypt on evacuation flights should go to the Cairo airport after 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) and "prepare for a substantial wait" with their own food, water and necessary toiletries. The government warned that priority would be given to people with serious medical conditions. More than 2,400 citizens have contacted the embassy requesting evacuation assistance, the Twitter feed said.

In a press briefing Sunday afternoon, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Janice L. Jacobs urged Americans with existing commercial airline reservations to contact their carrier first, but added that the U.S. government would provide charters from Cairo and other Egyptian locations as needed. Passengers will have to reimburse the cost of the flights and make their own onward travel plans. Jacobs said the evacuation flights could involve "several thousand" of an estimated 52,000 Americans in Egypt.

She said would-be evacuees should contact the embassy by e-mail at EgyptEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 202-501-4444. While a lack of Internet service in Egypt has been a "huge challenge," she added, the State Department planned to use "all available media" - along with contact from travelers' relatives and friends in the U.S. - to provide updates on flights.

Would-be looters broke into Cairo's Egyptian Museum on Saturday, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by soldiers, the Associated Press reports. Fears that looters could target ancient treasures at sites across the country prompted the military to dispatch armored personnel carriers and troops to the Pyramids of Giza, the temple city of Luxor and other key archaeological monuments.

Earlier, the British goverment said the country's tightly guarded Red Sea diving resorts along the Sinai coast - the most popular destination for British tourists - remained calm. But in Sharm el-Sheikh, a BBC reporter says he returned from dinner Sunday to find his hotel barricaded and the mood of the resort dramatically changed.

Along the Nile River in Luxor, meanwhile, tourists were being told to stay on cruise boats "as a precautionary measure," says Pamela Lassers of Abercrombie & Kent, a tour company that operates three Nile River boats. Between 100 and 300 A&K clients, most of them American, are still in Egypt, but the company is trying to arrange flights out of the country and has canceled all tours and cruises there through Feb. 28, says Lassers. Future travelers are being offered refunds or alternative itineraries, but "Egypt is a once-in-a-lifetime destination, and most want to wait until the situation settles down," she says.

About 350,000 Americans visited Egypt in 2010, and the country has been "one of our most popular destinations," Lassers adds.

Tourism accounts for 11% of gross domestic product and about one in eight jobs in Egypt, and the industry has rebounded from previous unrest and terrorist attacks.

When gunmen killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians at an ancient temple in Luxor in 1997, tourism slumped but picked up fairly quickly. The September 11, 2001 attacks, the second Palestinian Intifada, and a series of bomb attacks on tourist resorts in Sinai from 2004 to 2006 all led to temporary decreases in tourist arrivals, Reuters reports, but the trend over the last decade has been broadly upward.

Posted Jan 31 2011 1:04PM