Four killed in attacks on Libya capital Tripoli

Libyan transport minister Milad Matouq inspects damages at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport after it was hit by shelling yesterday. [Reuters]

Libya’s Government of National Accord said four civilians, including a child, were killed when rockets rained down on the capital Tripoli and its only working airport on Saturday.

The UN-recognised GNA blamed the attacks on eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has been waging a campaign to take control of the capital since April last year.

“The forces of war criminal (Haftar) fired more than a hundred rockets and missiles at residential areas in the centre of the capital Tripoli on Saturday”, the GNA said in a statement on Facebook.

At least four civilians, including a five-year-old girl, were killed and more than a dozen others wounded in the working-class neighbourhoods of Abu Slim and Ben Gashir south of the city, health ministry spokesman Amin al-Hashemi said.

Dozens of shots targeted Mitiga airport, hitting a civilian aircraft preparing to take off to repatriate Libyans stuck abroad due to the coronavirus," the GNA statement said.

The airport was badly damaged and was the target of further rocket fire yesterday morning. An airport source said two civilian planes suffered serious damage.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) called the bombardment “an all too familiar but frightening spectacle”.