Sebha now safe but 147 killed during clashes says government

Tripoli, March 31: According to Health Minister Fatima Hamroush, 147 people were killed and 395 injured in the fighting that took place this week in Sebha. The clashes, between Tebus and local Sebha residents largely from the Abu Seif tribe, broke out last Monday following the killing the previous day of an electricity company employee over a car.

Speaking today, Saturday, Hamroush said 20 vehicle loads of medical supplies had been sent to Sebha and the surrounding area and 187 wounded people from both sides had been taken for treatment in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib said that the latest truce was holding. The ministers of interior, defence and health, he said, had travelled to Sebha this week to help broker the peace deal.

“We are pained for the south and we are sorry that the clashes reached this stage,” he said. “The government is working to solve this problem. We have reached a ceasefire agreement.”

Speaking from Sebha, Colonel Wanis Bu Khamadh, commander of national army’s strike unit, said that the army had been able to extend its control over most of the neighbourhoods south of Sebha. He added that the army was now working to extend it control over the entire south of Libya.

“The situation is relatively safe now in Sebha after renewed clashes today between the parties,” he told the Benghazi newspaper New Corina.  “The situation is now safe. We will be able to impose our control completely.”

Asked about reports that Chadians and other non-Libyans had been involved in the fighting, Bu Khamadh would not comment, saying only that “the matter is being left to an inquiry to investigate.”

On Thursday, a Libyan army field commander in Sebha, Abdullah Ahmad Senussi, claimed that many of the Tebu fighters were Chadians and could not speak Arabic.