Libya airstrike: At least 40 killed in attack on migrant detention centre in Tripoli

An apparent airstrike launched by a warlord backed by the West’s Arab allies hit a migrant-holding facility in a suburb of the Libyan capital early Wednesday, killing at least 40 civilians and injuring scores more.

The attack in Tajoura, a coastal town east of Tripoli, left behind body parts and charred clothing mangled with concrete and steel girders, according to photos and video posted online. Women and children were among the dead.

The Tripoli-based government condemned what it described as a “massacre” and demanded an international investigation.

Some 600 people were being held in the facility, one of a number of de facto prisons where migrants attempting to cross into Europe are held after being picked up at sea.   

Western Libya is locked in a three-month battle for control of the capital pitting forces of Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar — backed by Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia — against the United Nations-brokered authority in Tripoli. At least 739 people have died in the conflict.

The refugees caught in the crossfire are part of a years-long surge of migrants attempting to flee drought, economic malaise, and war in Africa and the Middle East to settle in Europe.

The UN has repeatedly described war-torn Libya as unsafe for migrants and urged Libyan and European authorities not to settle refugees there. But Italy and other EU countries continue to fund the Libyan coast guard and encourage their efforts to keep refugees from crossing the Mediterranean.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees wrote in a tweet that was “extremely concerned about news of airstrikes targeting Tajoura detention centre,” adding that “civilians should never be targeted.”

There is no evidence to suggest Mr Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) forces targeted the facility. But LNA spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mismari just hours before the facility was hit announced ongoing airstrikes targeting Tajoura and other cities along the Tripoli front lines.

In the past, the LNA, which has deployed fighter jets provided by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has accused the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) of using civilians as “human shields.”

The attack, described as two airstrikes the facility, comes days after Mr Haftar promised heightened aggression following the loss of the strategic city of Gharyan to GNA forces last week.

Despite a UN arms embargo, both sides in the conflict are receiving military equipment from abroad.

GNA forces attempting to seize the city reportedly found advanced American anti-tank rockets sold by the US to the UAE. The UAE denied the weapons had belonged to it.

Last month Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged to international journalists that Turkey was sending military equipment to assist pro-GNA forces.

Jalel Harchaoui, North Africa specialist at Clingendael, a Dutch think tank, suggested that Haftar supporters would flood social media obfuscating culpability for the bombing out of fear of alienating nervous supporters such as France and Russia. 

“I am sure that the pro-Haftar propagandists have a point when they blame the Misratans for storing weapons near the migrants,” he said. “But I am old-school: the horrendous massacre is also attributable to those that ordered the airstrike.”