Libyan forces suffer casualties as fighting drags on in Benghazi
BENGHAZI: Libyan forces fighting in Benghazi have lost four men and seen 10 wounded so far in December, five months after declaring victory in a campaign to control the eastern city, a medical source said on Monday.
Three of the dead from the Libyan National Army (LNA) were killed by snipers and one by a land mine as it faces resistance from a group of fighters in the Benghazi district of Khreibish.
There have been daily clashes in the area and occasional air strikes.
LNA commander Khalifa Haftar declared victory in a three-year military campaign against an array of extremists and other fighters in Benghazi in early July.
The fighting is part of a broader conflict that developed following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Qaddafi. Haftar has opposed a UN-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.
Also on Monday, he UN urgently appealed for countries to take in 1,300 “extremely vulnerable” refugees stranded in Libya, following revelations of horrific abuse of migrants in the country.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said there was a dire need for 1,300 resettlement places by the end of March 2018.
“This is a desperate call for solidarity and humanity,” Volker Turk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, said in a statement.
“We need to get extremely vulnerable refugees out of Libya as soon as possible,” he said. The chaos-ridden country has long been a major transit hub for migrants trying to reach Europe. Many refugees and migrants have fallen prey to serious abuse there at the hands of human traffickers and others.
European and African leaders have already vowed to evacuate nearly 4,000 distressed migrants from Libya after global outrage erupted last month over video footage showing African migrants being auctioned off as slaves in the country.
“Many refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons in Libya are victims of serious violations of human rights, including different forms of inhumane, cruel and degrading treatment,” the UNHCR warned in Monday’s appeal.
It stressed that many of them had been detained for an indefinite period of time in deplorable conditions, denouncing the “routine detention of refugees and displaced people.”
The UN refugee agency in early November evacuated a first group of 25 vulnerable refugees — 15 women, six men and four children of Eritrean, Ethiopian and Sudanese nationalities — to Niger.
“Given the imminent humanitarian needs and the rapidly deteriorating conditions in detention centers in Libya, UNHCR is actively working to organize more life-saving refugee evacuations to Niger in the coming weeks and months,” Turk said.