Four Niger nationals, one Libyan wounded in Tripoli shelling

25 Avril 2020

Tripoli, Libya, April 25 (Infosplusgabon) - Four Nigerien nationals and one Libyan citizen were injured when shells fell in the districts of Ain Zara and al-Sbia, south and southeast of Tripoli respectively, a medical source said.

The city of Tripoli is in the grip of a military escalation marked by intensified armed clashes, shelling and missiles, as well as drone strikes. Tensions have spread to other parts of Libya, which began the Muslim fasting month on Friday.

The Centre for Medicine and Field Support announced on Saturday that four people were injured in the shelling of the Ain Zara area, while a fifth person was injured after a shell fell in al-Sbia.

"The field department of the Tripoli Hospital University Centre, under the Centre for Medicine and Field Support, has admitted four injured workers among Niger's expatriate workforce following indiscriminate shelling in the Ain Zara region," it said.

The Centre added that the hospital also admitted Libyan citizen Mohamed Anwar al-Bheiri, who was wounded in the neck as a result of the fall of a shell fired at random in the al-Sbia district behind al-Jadida prison.

In terms of military actions, the "Volcano Wrath" operation of the Government of National Accord (GNA) announced on Friday that houses near Maitigua airport were bombed by Grad rockets in the morning, accusing forces of Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) of carrying out the attack.

The same source also reported that fighter jets of the GNA destroyed an ammunition truck north of Beni Walid, 180 km southwest of Tripoli, belonging to the LNA.

"The Air Force carried out four strikes near the al-Wattia airbase in the west," Colonel Mohamed Ganounou, spokesperson for government forces, said on Friday evening.

He said in a statement on the operation page "Volcano Wrath" that the strikes also targeted vehicles belonging to Haftar's forces.

For his part, the spokesperson of the LNA, Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari, accused the troops of the GNA of carrying out a missile strike on the town of Tarhouna south of Tripoli.

He said in a statement that "more than 20 missiles were fired during the bombing, all of which landed in homes and civilian areas", noting that "the damage has been documented".

In his statement, he called on the United Nations Mission in Libya "to carry out its duties and condemn the real terrorists", noting that "the response of the armed forces is ready and inevitable".

This tension continues despite repeated calls for a humanitarian truce during the month of Ramadan as well as to provide an opportunity for success in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Libya, which has 61 cases of infection, 18 cures and 2 deaths.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ASD/GABON2020

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