Twenty-seven people were killed and around 100 others injured in violent clashes between two influential armed groups in the southeastern suburbs of Tripoli between Monday and Tuesday, the Emergency Medicine Center said on Wednesday ( CMU).

In a “provisional report” published overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday on Facebook, this agency which manages relief in western Libya, reported 27 dead and 106 injured in these clashes with heavy weapons between two influential armed groups in the Libyan capital.

According to the same source, 234 families were rescued and extracted, as well as several dozen foreign doctors or nurses, stranded since Monday night in combat zones south of the capital.

Three field hospitals and around 60 ambulances were mobilized to help the wounded and evacuate civilians to safer areas.

The fighting started after Colonel Mahmoud Hamza, commander of Brigade 444, was arrested on Monday by al-Radaa forces. No information has been given so far on the reasons for his arrest.

Late Tuesday, the “social council”, made up of notables and influential figures from Soug el-Joumaa, a sector south-east of Tripoli and stronghold of the al-Radaa Force, announced that it had reached an agreement with the head of government sitting in Tripoli, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, to transfer Colonel Mahmoud Hamza to a “neutral party”, without naming it.

In a press release read on television by its dean, this council indicated that a de-escalation and a ceasefire will follow this measure, which allowed a return to calm overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in Tripoli.

Fighting with heavy and medium weapons broke out overnight from Monday to Tuesday and continued until Tuesday evening between “Brigade 444” and “Al-Radaa Force” in several areas of the southeastern suburbs of the Libyan capital with indiscriminate shots that hit inhabited areas.

These two groups are among the most influential in Tripoli, where sits one of the two governments which are vying for power in a country undermined, since the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, by divisions fueled by the proliferation of armed groups. shifting allegiances.

08/16/2023 08:15:07 –         Tripoli (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP