An atmosphere of panic and chaos has gripped Tripoli's international airport, strewn with luggage left behind by fleeing passengers and besieged by crowds trying to escape the escalating violence.

Huddled in makeshift tents in a camp that sprawls outside the main terminal, thousands of people, many of them migrant workers from the Middle East and Africa, have camped out for days on little more than bread and water in the hope of leaving.

Long queues snaked outside in the dark as terrified crowds tried to make their way into the building on Saturday evening.

Heaps of discarded clothes, torn bags and suitcases were scattered around. As night fell and temperatures dropped, many huddled together in the cold, wrapped in blankets.

'I've been here for six days. We have only eaten biscuits. Sometimes there is even no water,' said one man from Egypt. He did not give his name for fear of reprisals from security men still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi who patrolled nearby.

There were no toilet facilities and men urinated in public.

Makeshift stalls sold loaves of bread for $4 a piece -- more than four times its usual market price.

Thousands of foreigners have fled Libya in mass evacuations as protests against Gaddafi's four-decade rule spread to the capital. A plane took British expatriates to London from Tripoli late on Saturday in what was expected to be the last charter to Britain. Other countries have organised similar evacuations.

Britain also sent in its air force to rescue 150 oil workers stranded in the Libyan desert to the south on Saturday.
Many thousands remained trapped in the country, mostly from other parts of the Middle East and Africa, many of whom lack tickets or proper documentation.

Tension was high and people were visibly on edge. A stampede occurred when a rumour spread that an Egyptian military plane had arrived to airlift Egyptian labourers out of Libya.

'We heard before on TV that the government sent planes to pick us up but they never came,' said one Egyptian man.

Egypt, where a similar popular uprising unseated President Hosni Mubarak two weeks ago, has problems of its own.

Libyan police used batons to keep the crowds in order, not always successfully. As the British nationals boarded their last plane out at Tripoli, a fight broke out among the despairing migrant workers, some of them brandishing sticks.

Thousands face a long wait yet if they are to get home.-Reuters