Foreign Office organise chartered flights from Malta to Gatwick for those plucked to safety during special forces operation
Three Hercules aircraft with special forces on board have rescued another 150 civilians from the Libyan desert in the second such operation in as many days.
The three aircraft, which landed in the Maltese capital Valletta on Sunday evening, airlifted oil workers from numerous locations as the SAS continued its mission to evacuate stranded Britons.
The Ministry of Defence revealed that one of the aircraft involved in the rescue mission appeared to have been hit during the operation.
"We can confirm that during the operation to recover civilians from the Libyan desert, one of our C130 aircraft appears to have suffered minor damage consistent with small arms fire," it said.
"There were no injuries to passengers or crew and the aircraft returned safely to Malta."
The new rescue mission came as dozens of British oil workers were returning to the UK. The Foreign Office organised chartered flights from Malta to Gatwick for those plucked to safety during Saturday's special forces-backed operation and others who had successfully made it to Libya's second city, Benghazi, which is no longer under Gaddafi's control. The first, which left Malta at 3pm local time, carried 148 passengers of whom 79 were British nationals. Another was due to depart soon.
But as those rescued spoke of their relief, there were concerns over Britons still trying to escape from remote desert oil compounds.
"All I can say at the moment is that we are working intensively to establish who is still in Libya and where they are to see how we can assist with getting them out of there. We continue to urge British nationals to leave Libya," said the foreign secretary, William Hague.
Thought to be among those trying to leave is Jim Coyle, 57, an oil worker from Erskine, Renfrewshire, who has been stranded in a desert camp. Coyle featured in news bulletins warning that there were people "running round with AK-47s" near his camp.
He is believed to be travelling to the Egyptian border in a convoy of coaches carrying workers from the OPS Amal compound. Planes were unable to land at the site after locals barricaded the runway with tyres and an anti-aircraft battery.
Coyle's daughter Julie O'Shea, said: "We are hoping they have left the compound but have not been in contact since [Saturday] night. We have no way of contacting him. The next 24 hours will be a bit nerve-racking till we hear he is all right because it's a 24-hour journey."
As operations at the British embassy in Tripoli were suspended and staff evacuated, there was still no confirmation of exactly how many British oil workers had been airlifted out on the two C130 Hercules aircraft that landed on desert airstrips south of Benghazi on Saturday, carrying SAS troops in case of a hostile reception.
The planes, from 47 Squadron, used by special forces, which carry four armed Land Rovers, landed in areas said to be in the hands of non-threatening local militia and private oil company security forces.
British workers were told not to tell anyone, including their families in the UK, that an RAF flight was coming. They were brought to the landing strip about two hours before the planes landed.
Those on board said it was "unbelievably crowded".
One said the plane was supposed to carry around 65 people, but the number more than doubled. "It was very cramped but we were just glad to be out of there," Patrick Eyles, a 43-year-old Briton, said at Malta international airport.
The Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland, which has already taken more than 200 people from Libya to Malta, was due to depart for Valletta from Benghazi at dusk with up 400 mainly non-Britons aboard, including Americans, Canadians, and Dutch. The Foreign Office stressed it would be the last boat. It said the government believed the "vast majority" of British nationals who wanted to go had now left.
Several UK citizens were reported to be among 390 on a ship which docked in the Greek port of Piraeus. Britons spoke of the chaos they had escaped and dangers they had faced in making it home. James Munro, 45, from Elgin, who was on the final Foreign Office-chartered flight from Libya, said the camp he was staying in survived many problems but many others were not so lucky. "We were stuck in the desert so one of the biggest problems was getting out of there," he said. "When we were eventually given a place on a plane we were given 10 minutes to pack our bags and there were only three seats available.
"The three guys that worked for my oil company, Waha, were given priority. But there are still guys out there because there isn't a plane for them."
Construction industry worker Jong-Kuk Lee, a 56-year-old Korean who lives in Surbiton, Surrey, recounted being attacked at knifepoint by thugs and robbed of possessions including his passport and mobile phone in the middle of the night in his living quarters before finally making it on board HMS Cumberland. "They took everything from me. It was terrible."
Paul Ellis, 51, from Milton Keynes, and his colleagues working on the Great Man-Made River Project in Libya were confronted by armed gangs, but said a woman proved to be their "guardian angel" because the gangs refused to enter the building in which they had sought refuge while she was there.
"The camp that we lived on was ransacked. Anything of any value – mobile phones, laptops – were taken. One of the guys had all his clothes taken as well. I was quite lucky that they didn't take mine.
"Gangs of young Libyans had knives and machetes. They wanted any valuables – money, laptops and mobiles. We just gave them those and the keys to cars and they just left us alone to some extent."