Car bomb kills 2 UN security staff in Libya
BENGHZI, Libya – A bomb-laden vehicle exploded Saturday outside a shopping mall in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi, killing at least two United Nations security staff, health officials said. The attack came even as the country’s warring sides said they accepted a cease-fire proposed by the U.N. aimed at halting combat in the capital Tripoli during an upcoming Muslim holiday.
Officials said the blast was at Arkan Mall in the Hawari neighborhood, where people were shopping a day before the Eid al-adha holiday begins. The Benghazi municipal council said the attack targeted a convoy for the U.N. Support Mission in Libya.
The site of the attack is close to offices of the U.N. support mission in Libya. The officials said the two dead hailed from Libya and Fuji. The blast also wounded nine people, including a 3-year-old child and a U.N. staff member from Jamaica, health officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came just a month after two bomb-laden vehicles went off in Benghazi, the stronghold for the selfstyled Libyan National Army. The July attack killed at least four people and wounded 33 others.
The warring sides, meanwhile, said they accepted a multiday truce for the Eid holiday, which begins Sunday.
Earlier this week, the U.N. envoy for Libya Ghassan Salame urged the LNA and the U.n.-supported government to declare a cease-fire for the holiday.
The battle for Tripoli has killed over 1,100 people, mostly combatants, and has displaced more than 100,000 civilians.
Thousands of African migrants captured by Libyan forces supported by the European Union are trapped in detention centers near the front lines. An airstrike on one facility early last month killed more than 50 people, mainly migrants held in a hangar that collapsed on top of them.
In past weeks, the battle lines have changed little, with both sides dug in and shelling one another in the southern reaches of the capital. They also resorted heavily to airstrikes and attacks by drones.
Rami Musa and Samy Magdy