GENEVA: The United Nations said on Thursday it had information that Libyan guards shot at refugees and migrants trying to flee from air strikes that killed at least 53 people, including six children, in a migrant detention centre.
A report from the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said there were two air strikes late on Tuesday, one hitting an unoccupied garage and one hitting a hangar containing around 120 refugees and migrants.
"There are reports that following the first impact, some refugees and migrants were fired upon by guards as they tried to escape," the OCHA report said.
Bodies were still being recovered from the rubble, the report said, suggesting the death toll could rise.
There are still about 500 people at the detention centre at Tajoura, east of Tripoli, with four Nigerians set for release to the Nigerian embassy on Thursday and a plan for 31 women and children to be sent to the UN refugee agency's departures facility in Tripoli.
Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants fleeing poverty and war to reach Italy by boat, but many are intercepted at sea and brought back by the Libyan coast guard, with the approval of the European Union.
The 53 dead was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar launched a ground and aerial offensive three months ago to take Tripoli, the base of Libya's internationally recognised government in the northwest of the country.
"The number of civilian casualties caused by the conflict has almost doubled as the result of this single attack," the OCHA report said, a day after UN officials said the air strikes may have constituted a war crime.
The United Nations has repeatedly said Libya is not a safe place for rescued migrants to be sent back to and has called for refugees and migrants to be released and given safe shelter.
It has declined to directly criticise Italy for shutting its doors but said European states must help to resolve the conflict in Libya in order to stop people taking perilous sea journeys.
UN says Libyan guards reportedly shot at migrants fleeing air strikes
UN says Libyan guards reportedly shot at migrants fleeing air strikes
- Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants fleeing poverty and war to reach Italy by boat, but many are intercepted at sea and brought back by the Libyan coast guard
- A report from the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said there were two air strikes late on Tuesday
Syria sends thousands of troops to Lebanon border, sources say
- The Syrian officers said the Syrian reinforcement operation began in February but sped up in recent days
- The reinforcements include infantry units, armored vehicles and short-range Grad and Katyusha rocket launchers
DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: Syria has reinforced its border with Lebanon with rocket units and thousands of troops, eight Syrian and Lebanese sources said on Tuesday, as conflict spread in the region including between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The sources included five Syrian military officers, a Syrian security official and two Lebanese security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Syrian officers said the Syrian reinforcement operation began in February but sped up in recent days. The Syrian and Lebanese armed forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Syrian officers, including a senior member of the military, said the move was aimed at preventing arms and drugs smuggling as well blocking Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah or other militants from infiltrating Syria.
A Syrian officer told Reuters that military formations from several Syrian army divisions, including the 52nd and 84th Divisions, have expanded their presence along the border in western Homs countryside and south of Tartus.
The reinforcements include infantry units, armored vehicles and short-range Grad and Katyusha rocket launchers, the official said.
The Syrian security official said Damascus had no plans for military action against any neighboring country. “But Syria is prepared to deal with any security threat to itself or its partners,” he said.
Still, the move has fueled concern among some European and Lebanese officials over a possible incursion.
The Syrian military officers vehemently denied any such plans, saying Syria wants balanced relations with its neighbor after decades of strained ties linked to Syria’s outsized influence in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s support for the former government of Syrian President Bashar Assad during a 14-year civil war.
Syria had troops stationed in Lebanon from 1976 until 2005 including during Lebanon’s civil war that ended in 1990.
Hezbollah resumed firing at Israel on Monday more than a year after reaching a ceasefire to a months-long war in 2024. Since that ceasefire, Israel continued near-daily strikes.
Israel this week ordered much of Lebanon’s south evacuated, with tens of thousands of people displaced. Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon’s South and southern Beirut have killed dozens and prompted thousands of people to flee toward Syria.
A senior Lebanese security official said Syrian authorities told Beirut that Syria’s deployment of rocket launchers along the mountains that form Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria was a “defensive measure against any action or attack that Hezbollah might launch against Syria.”
