So far the RAF has evacuated 81 British and European citizens from the west African state.

BBC Correspondent John McIntyre: Evacuations prompted by rebel attacks near the capital

The Foreign Office said most of those evacuated were from the UK, but the total included nine Italian priests.

They were flown on two Hercules transport planes 500 miles to Dakar in Senegal where they were met by British consular staff.

A total of 300 British nationals are expected to be flown out according to the Ministry of Defence.

Mark Doyle reports on the airlift operation

Amid expectations that the airport could close within hours consular staff were reported to be arranging for helicopters to carry UK citizens from Freetown to Lungi.

The UN has also pulled out its staff and has urged other African countries to refrain from supplying arms to the rebels.

Foreign Office warning

The Foreign Office had advised UK citizens in Sierra Leone to leave the country because fighting had intensified.

A spokesman said the new advice was a precautionary measure in response to increasing violence involving rebel forces and Nigerian-backed government troops.

More than 1,000 Nigerian troops have arrived in Freetown to reinforce the Ecomog peacekeeping taskforce there after renewed threat from rebels.

Lt Col Graham McKinley: "We don't want to let our friends down"

However, some British nationals have decided to stay in spite of the warnings.

Lieutenant Colonel Graham McKinley, a former defence attache, said the British High Commissioner and a number of other diplomatic and UN missions had remained.

He said: "We want to stay with them, we are part of the community here, we've been here for a long time, and we don't want to let our Sierra Leonean friends down."

'Street lynchings'

A British charity, Hope and Homes for Children, reported "widespread terror and panic" in Sierra Leone following an intensification of rebel action.

The charity, which runs a home for orphaned and abandoned children in Sierra Leone, said: "The town of Macurugu has just fallen to rebels and lynchings are occuring in the streets of the capital Freetown."

The former British colony, which became independent in 1961, has been wracked by internal strife in recent years.

In March this year the democratically elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who had been deposed by rebels, was reinstated with Nigerian backing.

The rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, and many of his men were captured but the insurgents simply returned to the countryside, reorganised and came back with renewed force.

Random attacks on civilians have grown and earlier this week artillery and small arms fire echoed around Freetown at night after a day of rebel attacks on Waterloo and other satellite towns east of the city.

The Foreign Office has opened an information line for relatives of Britons being evacuated from Sierra Leone.

The number is 0171 839 1010.