Shells pile on the suffering

Rocket attack on capital kills four; conflict coined ‘a senseless war against civilians’

SHELLS slammed into a Tripoli suburb overnight, piling on the suffering to civilians from a two-week assault by commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces to take Libya’s capital from an internationally-backed government.

The rockets, just before midnight on Tuesday, hit the southern residential district of Abu Salim near a disused airport, killing at least four people and adding to a death toll the UN puts at more than 800.

“This is a senseless war against civilians,” one man, Mohamed in his 40s, said among a group of angry people in the area, where houses and cars were damaged.

Both sides blamed each other for the attack. Haftar and his eastern Libyan forces have cast their advance as part of a campaign to restore order and defeat jihadists in a nation gripped by anarchy since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

But the internationally-recognised Tripoli government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj views the 75-year-old general as a dangerous would-be dictator in the Gaffafi mould.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said thousands of civilians were trapped in southern districts of Tripoli due to the fighting.

Rescuers and aid workers were having difficulty reaching them and electricity, water supplies and telecoms have been badly disrupted, it said in a statement.

Nearly 20 000 people have now fled their homes, some seeking shelter elsewhere in the capital but most heading out of the city.

At least 14 civilians were killed and about 36 wounded during the offensive, the OCHA said.

Serraj toured the damaged area yesterday, his office said. Abu Salim lies about 8km from the city centre, behind the front line of pro-Serraj forces blocking LNA troops to their south.

“I saw the rockets fall. This is a crime by Khalifa Haftar,” said one man.

International powers are aghast at the flare-up in Libya, which has scuppered a UN peace plan, threatens to disrupt oil supplies from the Opec nation, and may unleash a new wave of illegal migration across the Mediterranean to Europe.

But no common position has emerged given different sympathies towards the factions round the Gulf and Europe.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Haftar’s offensive had heightened the risk of militants joining migrant boats heading for his country.

“Islamist terrorist infiltration is no longer a risk, it has become a certainty: it is therefore my duty to reiterate that no docking will be allowed on Italian shores,” Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant League party, said on Radio Rai 1.

Rome has blocked charity boats that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean from docking at Italian ports, saying the ships are aiding people smugglers and encouraging mass, unregulated immigration.

The government has also accused the EU of leaving Italy isolated in dealing with the migration crisis of recent years. Since Salvini took office in June last year, the number of new migrant arrivals has fallen more than 90%.

Rome is pushing for Haftar to halt his advance.

Italy, with considerable oil interests in Libya, supports Serraj, bringing tensions with France which has backed Haftar in the past.