A flight set up by the federal government to pick up Canadians stranded in Libya left the capital of Tripoli empty Friday, a government official said.
"There were no Canadians at the airport at the time, and the aircraft cannot stay put," a government official told Postmedia News in an emailed statement.
"There were no other citizens from like-minded countries who needed a flight."
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peter MacKay condemned the ongoing violence in Libya as "insidious."
"The outrageous and insidious abuse of government power in Libya must stop," MacKay told reporters Friday.
Amid a bloody uprising in the African nation against the 41-year-old region of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, thousands of foreign citizens, including Canadians, have been desperately trying to flee the country for days.
As many as 200 Canadians have left on flights originating from other nations, most headed to European destinations.
The Canadian government, however, has struggled to get its citizens out of the chaos in Libya, sparking anger and frustration from those left in the country and criticism from the opposition Liberals.
A flight chartered by the federal government and due to arrive Thursday had to be cancelled due to security concerns on the ground and at the airport in Tripoli.
More than two dozen Canadians also endured a nerve-racking delay at they waited on a ship set to leave Tripoli. The U.S.-chartered vessel was delayed by bad weather.
However, on Friday morning, there was a report from Agence France-Presse that a delayed U.S.-chartered ferry carrying more than 300 evacuees had finally departed for the island of Malta.
The Canadian government also has a large C-17 military cargo plane on standby in Rome, the government source said Friday.
The military plane could be used to pick up a large number of Canadians from Tripoli, depending on the need.
There were fresh signs the violence was continuing unabetted Friday, as witnesses said that forces loyal to Gadhafi had opened fire on protesters in several areas of the Libyan capital after weekly Muslim prayers.
"There were deaths in the streets of Sug al-Jomaa," a witness told Agence France-Presse.
Chayne den Ouden, a school teacher from Nanaimo, B.C., fled Libya this week after finally paying her way through and out of the airport in Tripoli.
She lashed out at the response of the Harper government to the crisis.
"Knowing full well that Gadhafi is an unpredictable madman, they made absolutely no effort to step in and assist their citizens early," she said.
"On Sunday, I was still receiving emails (from Foreign Affairs) stating that western Libya was safe for travel. On Monday, they were telling us to stay put. On Tuesday, as soon as I heard that speech (by Gadhafi), I wanted to get out of there."
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has said that his ministry will get Canadians out of Libya "by any means possible."
Dimitri Soudas, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s director of communications, said Thursday night that Harper and British Prime Minister David Cameron had discussed "continued co-operation to evacuate our citizens."
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