Thirty Eritrean refugees fleeing the conflict in Libya arrived in the western Romanian town of Timisoara Wednesday pending their resettlement in third countries, a UNHCR official said.

The refugees were evacuated from a transit camp in the Tunisian town of Shousha, near the Libyan border, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Romania, Machiel Salomons, told a press conference.

The Eritreans will be housed at an emergency transit center here for up to six months pending their onward resettlement to third countries, most likely the United States.

The refugees had initially fled their native Eritrea in order to avoid compulsory military service.

But the UNHCR said that since the popular revolt erupted in Libya in mid-February 2011, African nationals have repeatedly been "physically abused or even killed" by Libyans angry over Moamer Gaddafi's reported use of sub-Saharan mercenaries to quash protests.

As a result, many African refugees fled Libya and were temporarily transferred to the Shousha transit camp.

More than 550,000 migrants have fled the violence in Libya since February, going to neighboring countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Niger, the UNHCR said.

Set up in 2008, becoming the first of its kind in Europe, Timisoara's emergency transit center has so far hosted 637 refugees, mainly Palestinians, Sudanese and Eritreans.

Most of them have subsequently been relocated to the United States, Britain and Canada.