Cyprus on standby to assist evacuations from Middle East

NICOSIA (Reuters) -Cyprus has fully activated a mechanism to allow third-country nationals evacuating the Middle East safe passage through the island as the crisis in the region worsens, government officials said on Wednesday.

One country has sought Cyprus's assistance for the evacuation of civilians, and Cypriot authorities had offered facilities to nine other countries in assisting smaller groups of people to leave, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said. He did not identify the countries.

Kombos said that while airports in the region remained functional, use of the Cypriot facility might be unnecessary.

"If, as a result of yesterday's developments, airports in the region shut, the (evacuation) plan comes into play," Kombos said after a meeting of the island's national security council, top advisers to the government on security issues.

He was referring to Tuesday's missile attack by Iran on Israel, which had previously launched a barrage of attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon, decimating its senior command.

Close to 60,000 people from Lebanon were evacuated through Cyprus in 2006, during the last large-scale conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

The island is the closest European Union member state to Lebanon, about 40 minutes by air and 10 hours away by boat. Some individuals from Lebanon have already started arriving on the island on private yachts, Cypriot officials said.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Sonali Paul and Peter Graff)

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