UN envoy urges key nations to call for end to Libya conflict

The UN envoy to war-torn Libya said on Wednesday he has launched “an intensive campaign” for an international conference to deliver a message that the offensive launched five months ago by an eastern commander must end.

Ghassan Salame warned the Security Council that unless key regional and international countries recognize that only a political solution can ensure Libya’s stability, “the conflict will continue.”

Without an immediate end to the conflict, he said, “we are faced with two highly unpalatable scenarios” — a protracted low-intensity conflict with more destruction “and a growing transnational terrorist threat,” or “a doubling down of military support to one side or the other by their external patrons” that will sharply escalate fighting and “assuredly plunge the entire region into chaos.”

A civil war in Libya in 2011 toppled and later killed longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi.

In the chaos that followed, the country was divided, with a weak UN-supported administration in Tripoli overseeing the country’s west, and a rival government in the east aligned with the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar. Each is backed by an array of militias and armed groups fighting over resources and territory. Haftar’s LNA launched a surprise military offensive on April 4 aimed at capturing Tripoli. The LNA is the largest and best organized of the country’s many militias, and enjoys the support of Egypt, the UAE and Russia. But it has faced stiff resistance from fighters aligned with the Tripoli-based government, which is aided by Turkey and Qatar.

Salame told the Security Council by video from Tripoli that since April 4, more than 100 civilians have been killed, over 300 injured, and 120,000 displaced. “There are no confirmed figures for the total number of fighters who have died so far, but anecdotally the figure appears to be in the low thousands,” he said.

Salame said a truce he called for during last month’s Eid Al-Adha holiday largely held despite some violations, and it garnered wide public support, though violence has since resumed.

The UN is working to build on the truce through confidencebuilding measures including the exchange of prisoners, exchanges of human remains, family visits to prisoners and in some cases phone calls to prove that loved ones are still alive, he said.