Clashes between two influential armed groups in Tripoli have left 55 dead and 146 injured in recent days, the worst fighting in a year in the Libyan capital.
The new assessment was communicated on Wednesday by Malek Mersit, spokesperson for the Emergency Medical Center, to the Libya al-Ahrar channel. The fighting that took place from Monday evening to Tuesday evening has ceased thanks to a ceasefire agreement, but the tension remains palpable in Tripoli.
According to this medical center, 234 families and dozens of foreign doctors and nurses had to be extracted from areas in southern Tripoli, where the 444 Brigade and the al-Radaa Force clashed. Three field hospitals and around sixty ambulances were mobilized to rescue the wounded and evacuate civilians.
Fighting with heavy weapons (rocket launchers and machine guns) broke out after the arrest, without explanation on Monday, of Colonel Mahmoud Hamza, commander of Brigade 444, by the al-Radaa Force.
Late Tuesday, the “social council”, made up of notables and influential figures from Soug el-Joumaa, the stronghold of the al-Radaa Force southeast of Tripoli, reported an agreement with Abdelhamid Dbeibah, the chief of the government sitting in Tripoli, to transfer Colonel Hamza to a “neutral party”.
In a statement, the council also announced a ceasefire, which allowed a return to calm.
According to local media, Mr. Hamza was at the headquarters of the “Stability Support Authority”, another influential group.
Commercial flights, temporarily diverted to Misrata, 200 km further east, resumed on Wednesday, according to Mitiga airport, Tripoli’s only civilian airport.
The two groups clashed continuously from sunset Monday until late Tuesday in the southeastern suburbs and indiscriminate gunfire hit residential areas.
The 444 Brigade and the al-Radaa Force are among the most powerful groups in Tripoli, home to one of the two governments vying for power in Libya.
At the end of May, fighting between these two groups, even in crowded streets in the city center, had injured people. In July and August 2022, around 50 people died in clashes between the al-Radaa Force and other groups in Tripoli.
The oil-rich North African country has been embroiled in security chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, fueled by a proliferation of factions with shifting allegiances.
Accompanied by his Minister of the Interior, Imed Trabelsi, Mr. Dbeibah went overnight to Ain Zara, one of the most affected areas, in the southern suburbs of Tripoli.
Walking through the streets plunged into darkness, Mr. Dbeibah gave instructions to “clear the debris” and identify the “material damage in order to compensate the citizens”, according to the government.
The Ministry of the Interior has put in place a security device to oversee the ceasefire by deploying forces in the tense areas.
But for the specialist in Libya, Jalel Harchaoui, “whatever the sequence of events, the last three years have been lost” by diplomats, peace mediators and decision-makers.
According to him, “Tripoli is a territory even more dominated by militias than before” and even if “Dbeibah remains in power, events show that he does not control” the situation.
The analyst explained the fighting as a “struggle between militias” for control of the territory, in particular with a view to the upcoming reopening of the international airport south of Tripoli, which has been closed for 10 years.
Libya is ruled by two rival governments: that of Mr. Dbeibah in Tripoli, recognized by the UN, and another in the East, supported by the powerful Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
The UN mission in Libya has appealed to “preserve the progress made in recent years in terms of security”, an exhortation echoed by Western embassies.
But for Hanan Saleh, a researcher with the NGO Human Rights Watch, faced with the “usual platitudes and lamentations”, “nothing will change (in Libya) as long as there (are) no consequences” for those responsible for the violence.
Brigade 444, based in southern Tripoli, depends on the Ministry of Defense and is considered the most disciplined of the armed groups in western Libya.
The al-Radaa Force claims to be independent of the government, controls central and eastern Tripoli as well as Mitiga airport and a prison.
08/16/2023 17:25:48 – Tripoli (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
