Crisis brews in Libya
The number of bodies of migrants recovered on a Libyan beach since the weekend has risen to 87, a media official from the coastal city of Sabratha said on Monday.
The bodies began washing up on the city’s beach west of Tripoli on Friday, the official said.
On Saturday, 41 bodies were found by a group of volunteers trained by the city council and sent to a morgue for DNA testing before being buried.
The rest were found over the weekend, the official added.
Illegal migration from Libya booms in the summer months when the Mediterranean is generally calm and traffickers pack unsafe boats with migrants desperate to start a new life in Europe.
People smugglers have taken advantage of the chaos gripping Libya since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Muammar Gaddafi to boost their lucrative business.
They cram migrants into boats that are small and unsafe for the perilous journey to Italy just 300km from Libya’s shores.
More than 10 000 migrants bound for Europe, mostly sub-Saharan Africans, have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In the meanwhile the UN warned that the Libya conflict was preventing 279 000 children from attending school across the war-torn country.
“Recently released data from Libya’s Ministry of Education paints an alarming picture of education access,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
“A total of 558 schools across various regions of Libya (were) classed as non-functional, affecting approximately 279 000 school-age children,” OCHA said in a report.
Schools had closed “due to partial or complete damage as a result of conflict and fighting,” it said.
In some cities including Libya’s second city of Benghazi, “a number of schools have become shelters for the displaced, preventing children from accessing them,” it added.
For more than two years, the eastern city has been rocked by fighting between forces loyal to the internationally recognised parliament and armed groups including the jihadist Islamic State group.
The violence has forced most schools in Benghazi to close in mid-2014, with only about a third reopening in December last year.
To the west, the coastal city of Sirte has lost more than three-quarters of its total population after IS overran it in June last year, OCHA said.
It said that since April and May, 35 000 people fled Sirte as forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government launched an offensive to retake the city from the jihadists.
“Host communities are struggling to provide assistance” as increasingly more people flee Sirte, putting a burden on infrastructure, OCHA said.
“Water and sanitation conditions... are deteriorating rapidly and hospitals face shortages of beds and medical supplies to aid growing numbers of patients.”
The unity government - the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement in December - has been striving to assert its authority amid the chaos.
NAMPA/AFP
The bodies began washing up on the city’s beach west of Tripoli on Friday, the official said.
On Saturday, 41 bodies were found by a group of volunteers trained by the city council and sent to a morgue for DNA testing before being buried.
The rest were found over the weekend, the official added.
Illegal migration from Libya booms in the summer months when the Mediterranean is generally calm and traffickers pack unsafe boats with migrants desperate to start a new life in Europe.
People smugglers have taken advantage of the chaos gripping Libya since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Muammar Gaddafi to boost their lucrative business.
They cram migrants into boats that are small and unsafe for the perilous journey to Italy just 300km from Libya’s shores.
More than 10 000 migrants bound for Europe, mostly sub-Saharan Africans, have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In the meanwhile the UN warned that the Libya conflict was preventing 279 000 children from attending school across the war-torn country.
“Recently released data from Libya’s Ministry of Education paints an alarming picture of education access,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
“A total of 558 schools across various regions of Libya (were) classed as non-functional, affecting approximately 279 000 school-age children,” OCHA said in a report.
Schools had closed “due to partial or complete damage as a result of conflict and fighting,” it said.
In some cities including Libya’s second city of Benghazi, “a number of schools have become shelters for the displaced, preventing children from accessing them,” it added.
For more than two years, the eastern city has been rocked by fighting between forces loyal to the internationally recognised parliament and armed groups including the jihadist Islamic State group.
The violence has forced most schools in Benghazi to close in mid-2014, with only about a third reopening in December last year.
To the west, the coastal city of Sirte has lost more than three-quarters of its total population after IS overran it in June last year, OCHA said.
It said that since April and May, 35 000 people fled Sirte as forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government launched an offensive to retake the city from the jihadists.
“Host communities are struggling to provide assistance” as increasingly more people flee Sirte, putting a burden on infrastructure, OCHA said.
“Water and sanitation conditions... are deteriorating rapidly and hospitals face shortages of beds and medical supplies to aid growing numbers of patients.”
The unity government - the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement in December - has been striving to assert its authority amid the chaos.
NAMPA/AFP
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article