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by The U.S. State Department will begin evacuation flights from Egypt Monday and said Americans should consider leaving Egypt "as soon as they can safely do so" - a reflection of escalating concern surrounding demonstrations against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
In a press briefing Sunday afternoon, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Janice L. Jacobs urged Americans with existing commercial airline reservations to contact their carrier first, but added that the U.S. government would provide charters from Cairo and other Egyptian locations as needed. Passengers will have to reimburse the cost of the flights and make their own onward travel plans. Jacobs said the evacuation flights could involve "several thousand" Americans; NBC News reported that there were 500 U.S. embassy personnel, not including dependents, and an estimated 50,000 U.S. citizens in Egypt.
Protesters in the Arab world's most populous country have taken to the streets for nearly a week calling for Mubarak to step down. Mubarak named his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the new role of vice president on Saturday, but many said they wanted the complete removal of a three-decade-old administration they blame for poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and police brutality. Fighter jets swooped low over Cairo in a show of force on Sunday, and at least 100 people have been killed.
Would-be looters broke into Cairo's Egyptian Museum on Saturday, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by soldiers, the Associated Press reports. Fears that looters could target ancient treasures at sites across the country prompted the military to dispatch armored personnel carriers and troops to the Pyramids of Giza, the temple city of Luxor and other key archaeological monuments.
Earlier, the British goverment said the country's tightly guarded Red Sea diving resorts along the Sinai coast - the most popular destination for British tourists - remained calm. But in Sharm el-Sheikh, a BBC reporter says he returned from dinner Sunday to find his hotel barricaded and the mood of the resort dramatically changed.
Along the Nile River in Luxor, meanwhile, tourists were being told to stay on cruise boats "as a precautionary measure," says Pamela Lassers of Abercrombie & Kent, a tour company that operates three Nile River boats. Between 100 and 300 A&K clients, most of them American, are still in Egypt, but the company is trying to arrange flights out of the country and has canceled all tours and cruises there through Feb. 28, says Lassers. Future travelers are being offered refunds or alternative itineraries, but "Egypt is a once-in-a-lifetime destination, and most want to wait until the situation settles down," she says.
About 350,000 Americans visited Egypt in 2010, and the country has been "one of our most popular destinations," Lassers adds.
Tourism accounts for 11% of gross domestic product and about one in eight jobs in Egypt, and the industry has rebounded from previous unrest and terrorist attacks.
When gunmen killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians at an ancient temple in Luxor in 1997, tourism slumped but picked up fairly quickly. The September 11, 2001 attacks, the second Palestinian Intifada, and a series of bomb attacks on tourist resorts in Sinai from 2004 to 2006 all led to temporary decreases in tourist arrivals, Reuters reports, but the trend over the last decade has been broadly upward.
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| The updated travel warning, issued Sunday, authorizes nonessential diplomats and embassy worker families to leave Egypt at Washington's expense. It notes that while the demonstrations in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities have not been directed against Westerners, it advises Americans to stay in their hotels or homes until the situation stabilizes. The embattled Egyptian government has extended a curfew throughout the country, and many airlines - including Delta, which flies between New York and Cairo - have curtailed or suspended Cairo flights indefinitely. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo said it would begin offering voluntary evacuations to "safehaven locations in Europe" - most likely Istanbul, Athens, or Nicosia, Cyprus - starting Monday. |  |
Protesters in the Arab world's most populous country have taken to the streets for nearly a week calling for Mubarak to step down. Mubarak named his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the new role of vice president on Saturday, but many said they wanted the complete removal of a three-decade-old administration they blame for poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and police brutality. Fighter jets swooped low over Cairo in a show of force on Sunday, and at least 100 people have been killed.
Would-be looters broke into Cairo's Egyptian Museum on Saturday, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by soldiers, the Associated Press reports. Fears that looters could target ancient treasures at sites across the country prompted the military to dispatch armored personnel carriers and troops to the Pyramids of Giza, the temple city of Luxor and other key archaeological monuments.
Earlier, the British goverment said the country's tightly guarded Red Sea diving resorts along the Sinai coast - the most popular destination for British tourists - remained calm. But in Sharm el-Sheikh, a BBC reporter says he returned from dinner Sunday to find his hotel barricaded and the mood of the resort dramatically changed.
Along the Nile River in Luxor, meanwhile, tourists were being told to stay on cruise boats "as a precautionary measure," says Pamela Lassers of Abercrombie & Kent, a tour company that operates three Nile River boats. Between 100 and 300 A&K clients, most of them American, are still in Egypt, but the company is trying to arrange flights out of the country and has canceled all tours and cruises there through Feb. 28, says Lassers. Future travelers are being offered refunds or alternative itineraries, but "Egypt is a once-in-a-lifetime destination, and most want to wait until the situation settles down," she says.
About 350,000 Americans visited Egypt in 2010, and the country has been "one of our most popular destinations," Lassers adds.
Tourism accounts for 11% of gross domestic product and about one in eight jobs in Egypt, and the industry has rebounded from previous unrest and terrorist attacks.
When gunmen killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians at an ancient temple in Luxor in 1997, tourism slumped but picked up fairly quickly. The September 11, 2001 attacks, the second Palestinian Intifada, and a series of bomb attacks on tourist resorts in Sinai from 2004 to 2006 all led to temporary decreases in tourist arrivals, Reuters reports, but the trend over the last decade has been broadly upward.
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