TRIPOLI: Tripoli’s worst armed clashes in a year have killed 55 people and wounded 146, Libyan media reported on Wednesday, as a truce took hold.
Fighting erupted on Monday night and raged through Tuesday between the influential 444 Brigade and the Al Radaa, or Special Deterrence Force.
Libya’s Al Ahrar TV reported the new toll, citing Malek Mersit, spokesman for the Emergency Medical Centre. Medics had previously reported 27 dead and 106 wounded over the two days of fighting in the capital.
Libya has seen more than a decade of stop-start conflict since the Nato-backed revolt that toppled Kadhafi.
A period of relative stability had led the United Nations to express hope for delayed elections to take place this year, and the latest fighting triggered international calls for calm.
The clashes were triggered by the detention of the head of the 444 Brigade, Colonel Mahmud Hamza, by the rival Al Radaa Force on Monday, an interior ministry official said.
Late on Tuesday, the social council in the southeastern suburb of Soug el Joumaa, a stronghold of the Al Radaa Force, announced that an agreement had been reached with Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah, head of the UN-recognised government based in the capital, for Hamza to be handed over to a “neutral party”.
In a televised announcement, the council said a ceasefire would follow the transfer of the force’s commander, and late on Tuesday the fighting abated.
Both armed groups are aligned with Dbeibah’s government.
A total of 234 families were evacuated from frontline areas in the capital’s southern suburbs, along with dozens of doctors and paramedics trapped by the fighting while caring for the wounded, the Emergency Medical Centre said.
Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, Dbeibah visited the southeastern suburb of Ain Zara, which saw some of the heaviest fighting on Tuesday, accompanied by Interior Minister Imed Trabelsi.
The interior ministry put in place a security plan to deploy officers to battleground districts to oversee the truce announced between the two sides.
The Libyan capital’s only civilian airport, Mitiga, which lies in an area under Al Radaa’s control, reopened to commercial flights on Wednesday, officials said. Flights had been diverted to Misrata about 180 kilometres to the east.
The UN mission in Libya said it was “following with concern” the security deterioration in Tripoli and its impact on civilians. — AFP
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