By Sami Zaptia.
London, 18 July 2019:
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’s (OCHA) Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya, Abdel-Rahman Ghandour, expressed his strong condemnation of attacks on the health sector in Libya.
In a statement released today, Ghandour said that “The latest attack was on Tuesday 16 July, when an attack targeted a field hospital in Swani, West Tripoli, injured three medical personnel and damaged equipment”.
“The targeting of medical personnel and facilities in Libya have become increasingly frequent, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. The attack on Tuesday was the third in 40 days to damage the same field hospital”, he added.
OCHA said that health workers in Tripoli are paying a heavy price since the onset of hostilities started early April. It called upon parties to the conflict to respect their clear obligation under International Humanitarian Law to protect medical teams and health facilities.
The humanitarian community in Libya demands immediate action to stop the targeting of humanitarian and civilian facilities and for those responsible for these violations to be held accountable, the statement said.
Diplomatically, OCHA did not attribute blame to any party in Tripoli’s latest fighting. However, Tripoli has attributed blame for the Swani Field Hospital to Khalifa Hafter’s forces.
It is unclear why this particular field hospital has been targeted four times, but Hafter’s forces have not held back from striking at any civilian target they claim is also being used for military purposes.
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