Libya Militia Fighting Takes Toll on Civilians, U.N. Says
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Version 0 of 1. GENEVA — Fighting among militias in and around the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in recent weeks has killed hundreds of people, including many civilians, the United Nations said Thursday in a report that described summary executions, abductions and torture taking place in a growing “climate of fear.” Two weeks into the eruption of militia violence in the capital, Tripoli, which started in mid-July, Libya’s Health Ministry had reported 214 people killed and 983 wounded in the city. But the United Nations “believes that the casualty figures are an underestimate,” according to the report released by the United Nations’ mission in Libya and its Geneva-based human rights office. “The deepening political polarization has generated a climate of fear in which people are reluctant to talk about certain violations that are taking place, particularly detention, abductions and torture, out of fear of retaliation by various armed groups,” the report said. The Health Ministry has not released any further casualty estimates for Tripoli, and it has been under pressure from fighters to stop giving out such information, the United Nations reported. The ministry did say in late August that 70 people had died in recent fighting in Benghazi. Still, as rival militia factions battled for control of Tripoli’s international airport last month — destroying civilian aircraft, fuel storage tanks, houses, hospitals and shops — one medical center in the city reportedly received about 100 bodies, including those of about 40 women and at least nine children, the United Nations said. All parties to the fighting have launched indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas using a wide array of weaponry, from rocket launchers and artillery to tanks and aircraft. In the aftermath of the fighting, the report said, “land mines reportedly used in the airport area and unexploded ordnance are now a major hazard for civilians, especially children.” Armed groups have carried out assassinations and summary executions in Tripoli and Benghazi, the United Nations reported, citing the murders of the prominent human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis, who was stabbed and shot in her Benghazi home in late June, and Tripoli’s police chief, Col. Muhammad Sweissi, who was shot in mid-August. The Philippines’ Foreign Ministry reported that an armed group in Benghazi beheaded a Filipino construction worker for not being Muslim, the United Nations added. Militias have abducted dozens of civilians “solely for their actual or suspected tribal, family or religious affiliation,” the United Nations report said, and gunmen who seized control of Tripoli in late August have continued to abduct people — detaining, among others, a prominent blogger and political activist who had criticized the presence of militias in the city. Attacks on and harassment of journalists, including abductions and an attempted assassination, are matters of particular concern, the United Nations said. The fighting and mayhem have taken a heavy toll on civilian life, it reported. Hospitals have been shelled; Tripoli has suffered shortages of water, diesel, cooking gas and basic items like milk; and “common criminality has risen markedly.” |