(Tripoli) Fighting between militias that erupted overnight from Friday to Saturday in Tripoli left at least 13 dead and 95 injured, raising fears of a new war in Libya, already in chaos with two rival governments.
Posted at 11:58 a.m.
Updated at 2:37 p.m.
Clashes between competing militias, with light and heavy weapons, broke out in several neighborhoods of Tripoli (west) where bursts of gunfire and shelling rang out all night.
They continued on Saturday evening, even reaching new neighborhoods, noted an AFP journalist.
But local media said that an alliance of militias favorable to Fathi Bachagha, head of the rival government of Tripoli, who was en route to the capital from Misrata, 200 km east of Tripoli, would be on the way. return.
These fights have been on an unprecedented scale since the failure in June 2020 of Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s attempt, a strongman from the East, to conquer the capital militarily, at the height of the civil war that followed the fall of the regime. of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Six hospitals were hit by the strikes while ambulances were unable to access the combat zones, announced the Minister of Health, who gave a new toll of 13 dead and 95 injured.
The Tripoli-based government blamed the clashes on the rival government camp, backed by Mr Haftar, even as “negotiations needed to take place to avoid bloodshed in the capital”.
” Threat ”
The clashes caused extensive damage, according to an AFP journalist, who saw dozens of charred cars and buildings riddled with bullets or set on fire.
The streets of Tripoli were almost deserted on Saturday evening, apart from the militiamen, while columns of grayish smoke rose in the sky.
The Tripoli-based government, led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah, has accused rival Prime Minister Bachagha, temporarily based in central Sirte, of “carrying out his threats” to take over the city.
Bachagha’s media office in turn accused the Tripoli government of “clinging to power”, accusing it of being “illegitimate”. He also denied any negotiations with his rival for an agreement.
“War in urban areas has its own logic, it is harmful to both civilian infrastructure and people, so even if it is not long, this conflict will be very destructive”, analyzed for AFP Emadeddin Badi , researcher at the Global Initiative think tank.
Since his appointment in February by the Parliament sitting in the East, Mr. Bachagha has been trying, without success, to enter Tripoli to establish his authority there, recently threatening to use force to achieve this.
Mr. Dbeibah, at the head of a transitional government, has assured many times that he would only cede power to an elected government.
“Concerned”
Tensions between armed groups loyal to one or the other of the two leaders have been exacerbated in recent months in Tripoli. On July 22, fighting left 16 people dead, including civilians, and around 50 injured.
The American embassy in Tripoli said it was “very concerned”, while the UN mission in Libya called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities” denouncing “clashes […] in neighborhoods populated by civilians.
For its part, Qatar called on “all parties to avoid escalation and bloodshed and to settle differences through dialogue”.
The government in place in Tripoli was born in early 2020 from a process sponsored by the UN, with the main mission of organizing elections last December but postponed indefinitely due to strong differences on the legal basis of the polls.
Libya descended into chaos after the uprising that brought down the Gaddafi regime in 2011.
In eleven years, the North African country has seen a dozen governments pass, two civil wars and has never managed to organize a presidential election.