Migrants still detained at site of deadly Libyan air strike

An airstrike hit a detention center for migrants in the Libyan capital early Wednesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding dozens, officials in the country's United Nations -supported government said.

The UN's mission in Libya has said around 3 500 migrants and refugees held in detention centres near the combat zone are at risk.

An LNA official denied that his force had hit the detention centre in a statement to Reuters, saying that militias allied to Tripoli had shelled it after a precision air strike by the LNA on a military camp.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to condemn the attack late Wednesday, Jul. 3, though it remained unclear whether it was the fault of Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) force, the U.N. -backed Tripoli-based government's forces or another group. Local media reported LNA had launched air strikes against a militia camp near the detention centre.

The GNA interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, said on Thursday his officials were discussing closing all detention centres and releasing the refugees and migrants for their own safety.

According to photos and video posted online, women and children were among the dead while hospitals and medical centres in and around Tripoli were flooded with badly wounded victims of the attack. Pictures shared by the migrants show the hangar reduced to a pile of rubble littered with body parts. UNOCHA said this latest Tajoura attack almost doubled the number of civilians who have died in the LNA-GNA fighting in the past three months.

Scores of African refugees were killed or wounded when the detention center in which they were being held in a western suburb of the Libyan capital of Tripoli took a direct hit in a bombing early Wednesday.

UNHCR spokesperson Charlie Yaxley said in Geneva the agency had asked to have the centre evacuated a few weeks ago after "a near miss from a similar air strike".

Libyan health ministry, Doctor Khalid Bin Attia, said that after the migrant center was destroyed, chaos reigned.

Egypt has also provided spare parts and guidance in servicing the planes.

"The (detention center) was apparently struck twice, with one missile hitting an unoccupied garage and another hitting a hanger which contained some 120 refugees and migrants", said UNOCHA.

Since 2015 it has had two competing governments, one supported by the United Nations in Tripoli, which barely controls the capital and some small towns in the west of the country, and the other led by Haftar, who controls the rest of the vast territory and most of the oil resources.

Haftar launched a military assault on the capital on 4 April in an effort to oust the GNA, which he claims is supported by terrorists and Islamists.

"Egypt and the UAE have been conducting air operations on behalf of the LNA, but there are no indications that the UAE transferred aircraft to the LNA", he said. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said that migrants and asylum seekers rescued at sea while trying to reach Europe should not be forcibly returned to Libya, in view of the prevailing conditions for migrants there.

Buhari noted that the unfortunate attack was a wake-up call to the warring factions in Libya and the global community to quickly restore peace and stability in the beleaguered country.

The detention centres have limited food and other supplies for the migrants, who often end up there after arduous journeys at the mercy of abusive traffickers who hold them for ransom money from families back home.

His opponents, however, view him as an aspiring autocrat and fear a return to one-man rule.

The mass killing that took place outside of Tripoli is the direct outcome of policies pursued by all of the major imperialist powers in their drive to lay hold of Libya's oil reserves, the largest on the African continent, and in their global war against refugees.