CRI听力:China Calls on Its Nationals to Leave Libya

China is calling on its nationals to leave Libya amid the deteriorating security situation in the country.

The Chinese Embassy in Libya is suggesting that businessmen, corporate personnel, and contract workers in foreign companies "leave Libya as soon as possible."

Many of the Chinese companies operating in Libya have already suspended operations.

Nearly 800 Chinese nationals have left Libya since May but there are still around a thousand left in the country.

Yan Jianquan is a counselor from the Chinese Embassy in Libya.

"As long as Chinese nationals submit their evacuation plans and notify us about their evacuation routes, the embassy will send the lists to embassies in related countries. It will help Chinese nationals to enter neighboring countries for evacuation. We have already launched an emergency response plan. Currently no Chinese was reported as injured in the country. "

The call comes as a fire at the oil depot which supplies Tripoli's international airport continues to rage out of control.

The blaze has now spread to a second depot.

The fuel tanks hold over 6 million liters of fuel.

Firefighters are struggling to contain the blaze and have asked residents within a five kilometer radius of the tanks to evacuate their homes.

Authorities blame the fire on fighting between rival militias.

The Libyan government has already appealed for international help to contain the blaze.

At least 97 people have been killed in fighting between rival militia groups battling for control of Tripoli's main airport in the past two weeks.

Members of the Islamist Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room are trying to seize control of the airport.

The airport has been held by a Zintan militia since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

For more on the situation in Libya, we earlier spoke with Professor Li Guofu, Senior Research Fellow with the China Institute of International Studies.