Ramadan without respite for Libyans, victims of military escalation

18 Mai 2020

Tripoli, Libya, May 18 (Infosplusgabon) - Libyans will have lived in 2020 the Ramadan, month of fasting for Muslims, the most difficult of their contemporary history with an unprecedented military escalation.

The country is witnessing bombings of all nature targeting civilians at a time when the country is fighting against the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, one of the most dangerous world pandemics with regard to its high level of infection and mortality in a context of failing health infrastructure.

Month of religion by excellence and beyond its aspect of asceticism, abnegation and devotion to God, the Sunna and Prophet Mahomet (PUH), as well as the spirit of tolerance and solidarity, Ramadan in Libya has become over the years, like in other Arab and Muslim countries of the world, a month of celebration to which are added other secular traditions.

It’s all about a way of living totally different from ordinary days that appear during Ramadan, with special culinary art, family night evenings around rich, varied and delicious meals.

Streets are full after the break of fasting, with the torpor of the day because of the weight of food and drink deprivation, leaving the place for family visits which become more frequent in the last 15 days of the month for markets to buy clothes for children and other family members, and ingredients to prepare for cakes and other sweets prior to the Eid el-Fitr celebration that marks the end of Ramadan.

Mosques are full with faithful who say the Al-Qiyam prayer and psalmody and say the Koran in Libya known to be the country with the million memorization of the sacred text.

But all these celebrations, traditions and this spirit of Ramadan have totally disappeared in most Libyan cities in this holy month because of the insecurity and prevention measures against the spread of the coronavirus.

Fraj al-Werfalli, a Libyan university professor, said that "for a country fighting for more than nine years against security chaos in the wake of the February 17 Revolution in 2011, life is very hard, particularly in the context of the spread of arms within populations and the omnipresence of armed groups, there was always a minimum of respite to live in a semblance of normalcy".

"With the intensification of Grad, rocket and other shell missile bombardments and the use of drones, the insecurity has increased, endangering the life of citizens by living in fear and death for more than a year because of the attack against Tripoli and the western region in April 2019 by the forces of Marshall Khalifa Haftar," he deplored.

On Saturday evening, seven people were killed and 17 others wounded in the fall of rockets that targeted a university center in al-Fournaj, east of Tripoli, accommodating displaced families, according to medical sources.

Last week, it was the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) which deplored the systematic targeting of residential districts and civilian infrastructure, particularly airport and hospitals, signaling that between 1 and 8 May, 15 people were killed and 18 others wounded in bombardments attributed to pro-Haftar forces.

Actually, the Tripoli central hospital located in Tarik al-Zawiya was affected by rocket fires, wounding members of the staff and causing damage in the hospital’s infrastructure.

The UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Libya said it listed "17 attacks/bombardments against health centers in Libya since the beginning of this year 2020", adding that those attacks are still continuing, "the Tripoli hospital center receiving on Friday an intensive rocket bombardment".

Previously, it was Maitigua airport, in the eastern suburb of Tripoli that was hit many times with more than 100 missiles that destroyed two civilian planes and damaged another one, provoking fire at the seat of the civilian protection unit based in the airport, as well as kerosene tanks in warehouses belonging to the oil product trading company Brega.

The Tripoli war, of which civilians are the main victims, forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes while 100,000 others are still stranded in the fighting zones, exposed to the crossed shots of belligerents, according to statistics released by UN organisations.

According to the same organisations, more than one million Libyans are in emergency humanitarian need because of the disruption of the access to basic services like electricity and water, which have become weapons of war used by certain camps for collective punishment.

Lack of housing, cash money, health care and food products have increased in Libya with the intensification of fighting and the military escalation.

This situation was maintained despite the multiplication of appeals inside and outside the country for humanitarian truce on the occasion of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and on the occasion of Ramadan.

The armed clashes have doubled in intensity, as well as missile shots, without any consideration for civilians who suffer from the tough economic conditions which are added the rise in prices for food prices.

In that respect, the UN High Commission for Refugees (HCR) revealed an increase in the prices of foodstuffs in most Libyan cities, shortly after the implementation in March of the prevention measures to fight against the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to a shortage of other products.

In their regular news conference on Saturday in Geneva, the HCR spokesperson, Andrej Mahecic, reported an increase in prices of “tomatoes by more than 200% at certain places as the price for sweet peeper increased by about 40%”.

"A shortage of basic products like eggs, vegetable and corn was reported in several Libyan cities," added Mahecic, signaling that "the country has difficulties to import products with the major obstacles the international supply chains is facing, as well as the disruption of the distribution channels because of the conflict in the west of the country".

The prices for hygiene articles increased by at least 60 percent, those for gloves and masks are multiplied by three, he said.

For Khaled Mohamed Abouchnaf, an activist of the Libyan society, "this is to say that the Libyans are having huge difficulties to make both ends meet in this month of Ramadan where the exceptional circumstances imposed by the coronavirus prevention make movements difficult".

He stressed that "to this is added the dilemma which citizens are facing, that is to say if they must stay at home at the risk to receive at any time a missile or shell on the head and get outside meeting the danger of a contamination to the corona virus".

Abouchnaf estimated that "despite the hopes for an unlock of the Libyan deadlock with the unanimous consensus around the Ghanaian diplomat, Hanna Tetteh, as new UN envoy in Libya, nothing seems to end the suffering of the Libyans".

For the Libyan political activist, Ali Moujahid, the key for solution in Libya is in the hands of some foreign countries involved in the Libyan affairs.

In a post on its Facebook page entitled "Calling for ceasefire in Libya is political hypocrisy", Ali Moujahid said: "I think all voices calling the Libyan parties in conflict to stop fighting, killing, destroying and damaging, and calling to prevent the movement of arms and mercenaries to Libya, target innocent civilians, civilian institutions like airports, hospitals, health centers, schools and ports, demolishing houses and robbing them, forcing dozens of thousands to be displaced and migrated, pillaging the public funds, stealing the prices for drugs, milk and books for children, closing oil, preventing the arrival of water and cutting the electricity, disrupting schools, whatever the United-Nations or the Security Council, because they do know, and everybody knows that the parties in conflict in Libya do not have the decision for ceasefire".

He added that "all those agents know that the decision to apply a ceasefire and end the bloodshed of the Libyans, the destruction and demolishing of Libya and the suffering of the Libyans is in the hands of the countries involved in the Libyan affairs”.

These countries “fuel the conflict in Libya and provide warring parties with the means to kill and destroy, by supplying them with mercenaries and by guaranteeing them political and diplomatic coverage, and by requisitioning rent media and the disinformation means and lies, at the expense of the blood of the Libyans and the pain of the amputees and the wounded, the tears of orphans, the lamentation of the victims and the sorrow of the widows".

According to him, "those countries are known and do not belong to another planet. The resigning UN envoy, Dr Ghassan Salamé, already called them by their names, and even children in Libya know them, including members of the Security Council who have a right for veto, nuclear states, neighbouring countries and small states, swimming on the oil and gas lakes, who fuel all flames of the Libyan war, by rancour…".

Moujahid concluded that "the parties in conflict in Libya, despite their arrogance and insistence, know they don’t have the keys for the wardrobes of their living rooms, and we saw them on images posted on the televisions of the world, little before their masters, and this is our only comfort with the blood of the victims and the destruction of Libya that will spring from the rubble and will rise on its feet despite that fall".

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/AZR/GABON2020

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