'Refugee crisis' on Libyan border

The predicament on Libya's border with Tunisia has reached crisis point, as tens of thousands of foreigners flee unrest in the nation, the UN says.

Aid workers seem unable to cope with the influx, say correspondents. Some 140,000 have gone to Tunisia and Egypt.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has instructed Western journalists he's cherished by his men and women and denied protests in Tripoli.

His interview arrived amid studies that he's trying to regain control of rebel areas in western Libya.

Col Gaddafi is going through a enormous challenge to his 41-year rule, with protesters in control of towns in the east.

Witnesses said pro-Gaddafi forces tried to retake the western cities of Zawiya, Misrata and Nalut on Monday but had been repulsed by rebels served by defecting army models.

The rebels said they had killed eight pro-Gaddafi militia, but there had been no opposition fatalities. There has become no term from the federal government on casualties.

You will find fears in Zawiya the metropolis could be attacked from the air, but the rebels remained defiant.

"We're not
right here for energy, authority or funds," they said inside a message aimed at Col Gaddafi.

"We are right here for the cause of independence and also the price we're willing to spend is with our personal blood... It really is victory or death."

In other developments:

* The Red Cross is requesting use of western Libya, amid unconfirmed studies of attacks on medical doctors and summary killings of individuals
* Austria freezes property of your Libyan leadership really worth 1.2bn euros ($1.65bn; £1.02bn) as Germany freezes the financial institution account of one of Col Gaddafi's sons
* Libyan air power planes reportedly attacked ammunition depots in the eastern towns of Ajdabiya and Rajma
* About 400 protesters gathered in the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura on Monday - Gaddafi supporters tried to disperse them by firing in the air
* Reviews say there have already been long queues in Tripoli banking institutions as men and women tried to collect the 500 dinars (£250; $410) promised through the federal government in an attempt to quell the unrest

'Forgotten'

A spokeswoman for the UN Large Commissioner for Refugees, Melissa Fleming, said 70,000-75,000 men and women have fled to Tunisia given that violence started in Libya on twenty February. A equivalent number have gone to Egypt, exactly where most have already been in a position to proceed their journeys onward.

"Our workers around the Libya-Tunisia border have instructed us this morning the predicament there is certainly reaching crisis point," she said, quoted by AFP information company.

About two,000 men and women are crossing into Tunisia each and every hour but as soon as in Tunisia a lot of of them have nowhere to go. Yet another twenty,000 are said to be backed up around the Libyan side.

Most are Egyptian, but you can find also substantial numbers of Chinese and Bangladeshis.

The Egyptians are angry, complaining that they have been forgotten by their federal government, says the BBC's Jim Muir around the border.

Temperatures plummeted overnight and our correspondent noticed the body of a young Egyptian man who had apparently died of chilly.