By Jamal Adel.
Tripoli, 12 May 2014:
A flour factory in Sebha was attacked and blown up yesterday morning. Three African workers were killed in the explosion and two Turkish employees injured.
The factory on Obari Road, which formerly produced 4,500 tons of flour per year and supplied much of the south’s flour for over a decade, has been reduced to rubble.
“The incident was largely motivated by a tribal vendetta in the south,” spokesperson for the Misrata-led Third Force in Sebha, Ala Al-Huwaik, told the Libya Herald. “Men dressed in army uniforms stormed the factory, threatened the workers, set bombs and shelled the factory with RBG missiles, which led to the blast.”
The factory is owned by the family of the late Abdilatti Dawo, who died last year in a car accident. Currently, two Turkish employees, who oversee a number of African workers, are running the company.
According to a Sebha resident who would not disclose his name for security reasons, “the explosion was deliberate and motivated by a vendetta. The factory owner was from the Qaddafi tribe. Last year, he died in a car accident. The year before that, his brother was brutally killed by a tribal militia. They tortured him and left his body in the street.”
Sebha, has seen a series of communal-based conflicts in the past two years, most recently at the beginning of the year between Tebus and the Arab Awlad Suleiman tribe. The Misratan-led Third Force brokered a ceasefire and restored order this past February. [/restrict]
