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Bloomberg
An attack on a Libyan detention centre that killed at least 44 people may constitute a war crime, a United Nations envoy said, adding to international pressure to end a battle for the capital that’s threatening to tear the North African Opec member apart.
Libya’s UN-backed government accused eastern commander Khalifa Haftar of ordering an overnight airstrike that hit the compound for undocumented migrants in the suburbs of the capital, Tripoli.
Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) denied the charge and said the Tripoli-based government was to blame, the pan-Arab TV channel Al-Hadath reported.
“This attack clearly could constitute a war crime, as it killed by surprise innocent people whose dire conditions forced them to be in that shelter,†the head of the UN’s support mission in Libya, Ghassan Salame, said in a statement.
The centre in Tajoura held at least 600 refugees and migrants, including women and children, many of them Africans who’d attempted to travel to Europe.
The UN Refugee Agency called for an immediate independent probe into who was responsible for the raid that left 130 other people severely injured.
If proven, the nature of the target and the death toll will likely increase calls for Haftar and his backers to return to the UN-sponsored peace process.
The raid followed a warning by Haftar’s forces that they would launch airstrikes on Tripoli targets after losing the strategic city of Gharyan to the government.
That loss had dealt a blow to his months-long campaign to seize the capital and take control of the war-torn country.
Libya is divided between two rival governments and militias vying to control a country that holds Africa’s largest proven oil reserves.
The conflict is rapidly turning into the latest proxy war in the Middle East.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said it was committed to the UN arms embargo on Libya and called on the country’s warring parties to ease tensions.
“I understand that the State Department may have begun an investigation; if not, I demand that a full investigation be done immediately,†New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez wrote in the letter, posted on his website.