MANILA: The Philippines on Sunday ordered its estimated 13,000 nationals in Libya to flee that country due to the worsening unrest there.

The Department of Foreign Affairs ordered the mandatory evacuation of Filipinos in Libya “in response to the extremely unstable political and security situation”, a statement said.

The order also bars Filipinos from traveling to Libya.

Filipinos were told to contact the embassy in Tripoli for instructions on “mass evacuation,” the statement said without giving details.

Unrest has escalated in recent days with rival militia groups fighting around Tripoli airport, which has been shut down as fears grow of all-out civil war.

About 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, many of them in Middle East, having left their homeland in search of better-paying jobs. However this has often placed them in delicate situations when violence breaks out in these countries.

On Saturday, the foreign department ordered the 100 Filipinos living in Gaza to leave the besieged Palestinian territory as Israel presses its offensive.

“In view of the threats to security posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict to Filipinos in the Gaza Strip, the Department of Foreign Affairs has raised Alert Level 4 in Gaza,” a statement said.

That level means “mandatory evacuation” of Filipinos by Philippine embassy staff from Cairo, Tel Aviv and Amman and with the help of the United Nations, it added.

The department said there were an estimated 109 Filipinos living in Gaza when the deadliest border flare-up since 2012 began nearly two weeks ago.

The fighting followed last month’s kidnap and murder of three young Israelis in the occupied West Bank and the brutal revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish extremists.

The Philippine government also ordered its more than 36,000 nationals working in Israel not to venture within 15 kilometres (nine miles) of the Gaza border.

About 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, many of the throughout the Middle East, having left their homeland in search of better-paying jobs.

Some 318 Palestinians have died in the latest conflict, the deadliest in Gaza since 2009.