News: Massacre continues in Libya

In just 48 hours, more than 100 people have been killed in Nalout and Yefren, two towns south-west of Tripoli attacked by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. In addition, a thousand people have died in six weeks in Misrata (200 km east of Tripoli), even though the UN has received authorisation from the Libyan government to send a humanitarian mission there. Tripoli has also guaranteed «safe passage» for international humanitarian teams in the areas under its control.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, around 3,000 Libyans fled from the western mountains into Tunisia on Saturday. In the besieged city of Misrata, the death toll is rising and the humanitarian situation remains worrying.

The UK's Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, told the BBC that the situation in Misrata had «seriously deteriorated in recent days«. ’5,000 poor foreign workers are stranded on a quay. There are explosions some 300 metres away,» he said. He announced that his country was going to evacuate this group of workers by sea, via the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

On Monday, the IOM rescued nearly 1,000 migrants who arrived in Benghazi that evening, and the International Committee of the Red Cross evacuated 618 others by sea, the only gateway to the outside world.

During the day, sustained shelling shook the city, which was overflown by NATO aircraft. A thousand citizens died in Misrata and 3,000 were injured, according to medical sources. ’90% of the dead are civilians«, estimates the town's hospital administrator, Dr Khaled Abou Falgha.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday called for a genuine ceasefire in Libya, stressing that this was one of the UN's three objectives, along with the extension of humanitarian aid and the pursuit of «political dialogue and the search for a political solution».

For his part, British Prime Minister David Cameron once again reiterated that there was «no question of invasion or occupation», while the Chairman of the French National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, Axel Poniatowski, called on NATO to send special forces on the ground to avoid «getting bogged down».

Source: AFP