Liu added about 100 Greeks and citizens from other European nations will also board the Chinese ships.

The Chinese embassy in Malta also sent a ship to Libya to pick up about 2,000 Chinese nationals.

"They will go home later on chartered flights, but we have to first make sure they are fed and have proper accommodation once they arrive here. They can stay on the ship, at least initially, as it has catering facilities and beds," Fu Zhimin, an embassy staff member, said.

Meanwhile, a group of 43 Chinese nationals who fled Libya were set to depart for Beijing, from Egypt, on Wednesday night (Beijing time) on a commercial flight, the Chinese embassy in Egypt said.

They were part of a total of 83 Chinese nationals from China State Construction Engineering Corp who were evacuated from Libya to Egypt's northern port city of Alexandria on Tuesday night.

The remaining 40 were scheduled to leave for Beijing some hours later, the Chinese embassy said.

With the help of the Chinese embassy in Sofia, 10 Chinese nationals from Hubei province, working near Tripoli, took a chartered plane and arrived in the Bulgarian capital before traveling to Moscow where they will get a flight to Beijing.

Some Chinese workers in Libya said earlier that nearly all Chinese companies in the country were "attacked or looted."

A site run by China's Huafeng Construction Co Ltd in eastern Libya was attacked by armed looters over the weekend who stole computers and other equipment and forced nearly 1,000 Chinese out of their living quarters.

Meanwhile, the 15 Chinese wounded by Libyan rioters, all of them staff members of Sinohydro Corporation working on local projects, are in stable condition in local hospitals, a diplomatic source told China Daily.