Desperate refugees surge over Libya-Tunisia border | World | Reuters

Desperate refugees surge over Libya-Tunisia border | World | Reuters: "Soldiers fired into the air in an effort to subdue a wave of Egyptian labourers desperate to escape Libya on Tuesday, as the refugee crisis created by the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi escalated.

Aid workers threw bottles of water and loaves of bread over the wall to a sea of men surging forward towards the safety of Tunisian soil, in a futile attempt to calm them.

Young Tunisians with branches torn from the trees kept them from clambering over the wall between border posts.

Tunisian officials were processing entrants as fast as they could, as medics plucked fainting men from the heaving mass sweeping over the chest-high steel gate.

Panicking migrants passed their bulging suitcases, rugs, and blankets overhead at the gate where soldiers with sticks tried to hold them back. A Tunisian officer with a loud hailer shouted reassurances that they would be let in.

Order looked close to collapse at one brief point in the overflowing border compound on the Tunisian side, where throngs of men jostled and long lines of exhausted migrants in torn jackets and headcloths queued for water, food, and toilets.

Troops fired warning shots in the air"

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