TRIPOLI — At least 130 people, mainly
civilians, have been killed by landmines and other explosives left after heavy
fighting in 2020 around the Libyan capital, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
اضافة اعلان
The explosives, including banned antipersonnel
landmines and booby-trapped explosives, were scattered in the suburbs of
Tripoli during heavy fighting in 2019-2020, when the powerful eastern-based
military strongman Khalifa Haftar tried to capture the capital.
While Haftar withdrew from Tripoli in June 2020,
with Libya’s rival camps signing a ceasefire later that year, the dangerous
legacy remains.
“Forces allied with Khalifa Haftar laid landmines
and improvised explosive devices that have killed and maimed several hundred
civilians including children, and hinder southern Tripoli residents from
returning home,” said HRW’s Libya director Hanan Salah.
“Antipersonnel mines are banned because they
indiscriminately kill civilians both during fighting and long after the
conflict ends.”
HRW, quoting figures from the defense ministry’s
Libyan Mine Action Centre, said at least 130 people had been killed, 200 people
injured, and thousands forced to leave their homes.
It calculated that landmines and other explosive
ordnance had “contaminated” some 720sq.km. in southern Tripoli.
The North African country was thrown into chaos
after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and led to the killing of long-time
dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Fighting drew in regional powers and foreign
mercenaries.
Turkey sent in troops as well as pro-Ankara militia
units from Syria to shore up the Tripoli government, while Russia’s Wagner
group deployed mercenaries backing Haftar.
“So far, no commanders or Libyan and foreign
fighters responsible for serious abuses during the 2019–2020 Tripoli war have
been held to account,” Salah said. “International action is needed for credible
prosecutions to happen.”
Clearing the landmines is a major challenge.
As well as funding shortfalls and a lack of
expertise, efforts to remove the landmines have been hampered by “fragmented
governance and insufficient coordination among government agencies and
humanitarian groups,” HRW said.
Libya remains split between rival forces, with two
opposing executives in place since February.
Earlier this month, a rival government selected by
parliament in the east met for the first time, challenging a cabinet brokered
by the UN and based in the capital Tripoli in the west.
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