Spain's Foreign Ministry says it is temporarily evacuating its ambassador and most embassy staff from Libya because of the worsening security situation in the capital, Tripoli, according to Reuters.
A ministry statement Thursday said one staff member would remain in charge of the embassy, adding that an unspecified number Spaniards and other nationals were also to be flown out, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, a Spanish military plane took 60 people out of Libya, among them 49 Spaniards and some relatives, according to Reuters.
"All the information we have is that the situation in Libya will get much worse very quickly," Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo told parliament, Reuters reported.
The ministry it was confident that the unstable situation in Libya would end soon, and reiterated Spain's support for the country's new parliament and called again for a cease-fire as soon as possible, Reuters reported.
One person will remain in the embassy to oversee archives while Spanish consulate business will be taken on by Italy and Malta, which have kept their own embassies open, Margallo said, according to Reuters.
Greece said on Thursday it was sending vessels to Libya to evacuate embassy workers and a few hundred Chinese and European nationals, Reuters reported.
The past two weeks of fighting between rival militias in Libya have been the worst since the civil war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, prompting Western governments to follow the United States and the United Nations in pulling out their diplomats, according to Reuters.
About 200 people have been killed since the clashes erupted two weeks ago in the capital Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi, Reuters reported.
