UN: Air raid in Libya kills 10, may constitute a war crime
LIBYA - At least 10 people have been killed and 35 wounded in an air attack that hit a biscuit factory in Libya in what a senior United Nations official said was a possible war crime. The majority of those killed in the attack on Monday in Wadi Rabea, 21 kilometres (13 miles) from the centre of the capital, Tripoli, were apparently migrants, while two were Libyan, the UN Libya envoy Ghassan Salame told the UN Security Council. Photos posted by authorities showed several wounded people in bloodstained civilian clothes lying on beds in ambulances or medical facilities.
Malek Merset, a spokesman with the Tripoli-based health ministry, said at least 33 workers, mostly from Niger and Bangladesh, were taken to hospital for urgent treatment. Merset said seven people have died in the attack. Libya has been split between rival camps based in Tripoli and the east since 2014, a result of the divisions that surfaced following the NATO-backed overthrow of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi three years earlier.
Tripoli has been under attack since April from forces loyal to renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar. The offensive by his Libyan National Army (LNA) quickly stalled, and both sides have used drones and fighter jets to carry out air raids amid sporadic fighting. The UN-recognised Tripolibased Government of National Accord (GNA) blamed
Monday’s attack on the LNA, which later issued a statement on combat operations that did not comment on the air raid. LNA air attacks have often hit civilian areas in Tripoli, however, officials in eastern Libya contacted by Reuters News Agency on Monday said they had no information about an air attack by their forces. “Regardless of whether the attack deliberately targeted the factory or was an indiscriminate attack, it may constitute a war crime,” the UN’s Salame said. He also accused the LNA of causing civilian casualties by increased air attacks with unguided bombs, according to a transcript of his speech released by the UN mission in Libya. (Al Jazeera)