Fighting erupted between armed militias south of the Libyan capital for the fourth consecutive day, killing at least 26 people, including civilians.
Widad Abu Niran, a Health Ministry spokesman, said Thursday that another 75 people have been wounded in the fighting between armed groups from Tripoli against other groups from a town to the south.
Militias supported by the UN-backed government in Tripoli proposed a ceasefire on Wednesday. However, it was violated.
“A combined force from the ministry of defense and interior of the Government of National Accord (GNA) led an offensive against positions of the Seventh Brigade,” said a military officer with forces loyal to the UN-backed GNA.
The militia had been trying to advance along the road to Tripoli’s international airport which has largely been closed since fighting in 2014.
The Seventh Brigade supposedly operates under the GNA’s defense ministry. It said in a statement on its Facebook page that it had controlled the transport area in the airport road and that ISIS militants were fleeing the sites.
But on Monday, security forces were fighting the militia, which hails from the town of Tarhuna southeast of Tripoli.
"Government forces attacked a number of sites in Tripoli's border with the municipality of Qasr bin Ghashir, whose administrative border lies south of the capital, and used heavy weapons in an attempt to restore the sites," a source in the joint security room, composed of police and army forces, said.
“Our forces are trying to restore a number of sites that fall under the control of the gunmen of the Seventh Brigade in Tarhuna,” he added.
In this context, Ambulance and Emergency Team of the Red Crescent of Tripoli pulled out bodies of two victims of armed clashes in Tripoli on Tuesday.
During a tour in Ain Zara area, after the clashes stopped on Monday night, the Ambulance Team evacuated, through a safe passage, 21 families stranded in armed fighting areas in the outskirts of the city.
Libya slid into chaos after the 2011 uprising that overthrew and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country is currently governed by rival authorities in Tripoli and the east, each backed by an array of militias that wield real power on the ground.
