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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 27 August 2020:
The internationally recognized Libyan government led by Faiez Serraj and based in Tripoli last night announced a 24-hour curfew from 6pm Wednesday for the next four days. The curfew then continues for ten days from 9pm to 6am and for 24-hours on Friday and Saturday.
Travel between cities is prohibited and only small food shops can open and can be visited on foot during the 24-hour curfews. Social distancing and other anti-Coronavirus health procedures are to be followed. Social and religious gatherings and public transport continues to be prohibited.
The curfew can be seen as a response to the Coronavirus cases that are spiralling out of control. Yesterday, Libya’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported 440 new cases. This brings Libya’s total cases to 12,274, active cases to 10,846, recoveries to 1,209 and deaths to 219.
The curfew can also be seen as a response to yesterday’s warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) that Libya’s cases are likely to be much higher than announced.
WHO said that it is alarmed over rapidly escalating rates of Coronavirus in Libya. It said that over the past 2 weeks, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Libya has more than doubled, adding that given the acute shortages of tests and laboratory capacity, the real number of cases is likely to be much higher.
The politicization of Coronavirus?
On the other hand, critics of the Tripoli administration have accused the internationally recognized Libyan prime minister of politicizing the Coronavirus pandemic and of using it to strike back at the recent demonstrators against his term in office.
Having failed to stop the unauthorized demonstrations taking part since Monday using the law and his split law enforcement agencies, they accuse him of using the curfew to suppress them.
