Lithuanians flee Georgia- Some stay

TBILISI-VILNIUS 's A Lithuanian Air Force plane took off from the Tbilisi airport carrying home 42 Lithuanian citizens from Georgia.

 The BNS correspondent reported from the Georgian capital that among the passengers were 39 Lithuanian citizens who had arrived in Georgia on a temporary basis prior to the armed conflict, as well as Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas and two journalists from Lithuanian national television.

Among the passengers are an infant and five underage persons.

The flight from Georgia may take between five and six hours. The destination airport in Lithuania is yet unknown.

Lithuanian diplomats working in Georgia said that all Lithuanians who had requested departure from Georgia had been assisted out of the country.

Nevertheless, some Lithuanian citizens remain in Georgia, their precise number is unknown - some said they did not want to leave and others expected the situation to improve shortly.

A total of 75 persons who had arrived in Georgia on a temporary have registered with the Lithuanian Embassy in Tbilisi, some of them left for the capital of the neighboring Armenia by their own means.

Approximately 60 Lithuanians residing in Georgia remain in the country - they also registered with the embassy but have so far not expressed willingness to leave.

The Tbilisi airport is virtually inactive, Latvia's AirBaltic Company cancelled flights fromVilniusto Tbilisi at the last minute.

Lithuania's largest local-capital airline flyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines also decided on to cancel this week's flights to the Georgian capital .

The company's CEO Vytautas Kaikaris told BNS that the flyLAL leadership made the decision to suspend flights on Monday.

Under the regular schedule, flyLAL airplanes fly fromVilniusto Tbilisi on Monday and Wednesday evenings and return from Tbilisi toVilniuson Tuesday and Thursday mornings.