Thirteen people, including a child, were killed and 30 injured in violent clashes that erupted on Thursday evening and Friday between two armed groups in the Libyan capital Tripoli and resumed on Friday afternoon after a brief lull.
Clashes resumed today, Friday, with heavy gunfire in the east of the city near the Tripoli University campus and the Tripoli Medical Center, where many people sought shelter at night to escape the violence, Libyan media and AFP correspondents reported.
Violent clashes broke out in the eastern quarters of Tripoli shortly after midnight on Thursday, causing panic among residents in crowded streets and parks on a hot summer night.
As a result of the clashes, “13 people were killed, including three civilians, including an 11-year-old child, and 30 were injured,” Al-Ahrar TV channel quoted the Libyan ambulance service as saying on Friday.
An AFP photographer pointed out that the 444 Brigade of the Libyan Ministry of Defense intervened on Friday morning to stop the clashes and positioned their armed vehicles in a buffer zone at the Al-Fernaj roundabout (east of Tripoli) before it was fired upon. heavy fire.
Ambulance spokesman Osama Ali said 60 students were stranded in university dormitories due to clashes. Ambulances were sent to evacuate them to a Tripoli hospital.
Photos and videos posted on social media show dozens of vehicles abandoned by their owners to escape gunfire.
“We spent the night in an underground shop to avoid bullets, but the children are still afraid and do not want to go out,” said Mukhtar Muhammad al-Mahmoudi, head of a family from the Al-Furnaj district east of the capital. .
Several state rooms are located in the collision area. Hundreds of women attending weddings are trapped in the fighting and unable to return home.
Paramedics arrived to assist them and they were evacuated to the Tripoli Medical Center and safe areas.
“I don’t know what would have happened to me and my sisters,” Mayssa Benaissa, who attended her cousin’s wedding on Thursday night, told AFP if we hadn’t been helped by an ambulance.
Malik Al-Badri, 27, used the Global Positioning System (GPS) to avoid major roads to pick up his mother from the wedding hall where she was.
“I was able to get there on small dirt roads near farms and houses thanks to Google Maps. God knows where I could go in the middle of the night, especially since I’m not from this area, ”he said. .
He believed that “Tripoli will not know peace as long as these armed formations remain here.”
The United Nations Mission in Libya expressed “grave concern” and called on “all Libyans to do everything in their power to maintain the country’s fragile stability at this difficult time, to exercise maximum restraint and resolve their differences through dialogue.” “
Friday’s statement said “any action that endangers the lives of civilians is unacceptable” and called for “an investigation into the events and justice for the victims and their families.”
Libyan Airlines diverted its flights from Cairo and Global Airlines from Benghazi, which was scheduled to land at Maitika Airport near the site of the clashes, to Misurata, 250 kilometers east of Tripoli.
And the administration of Maitika Airport has suspended flights until further notice.
